Bishop Lloyd Middle School has announced the results of the Test Drive a Buick fundraiser.
On Thursday, September 17, the school partnered with Westridge GMC, where the dealership donated 20 dollars to the school for each test drive, for a maximum of $10,000. In total, the school performed 555 test drives, a record among similar fundraisers held in other cities across Canada. Principal Shawn Larson says the numbers surprised him.
“We expected we’d have a good turnout,” Larson said. “We had about 400 people we expected [to come] out, but it far exceeded our expectations. We were going for the $10,000, we wanted to make that goal, but when the support from the community – the parents, [the] neighbours of the school, who didn’t even have students in our building – showed up… we knew we were going to be successful.”
Larson also says that the money will be used for school beautification projects, but it won’t completely fund what students have planned.
“It’s going to go part of the way,” Larson said. “The students are the ones who are going to be making the decisions on what kind of items we want. They want to do some trees, planters, and benches for out [in] front of the school. We haven’t come up with a final budget, we’re still looking to do some fundraising.
“Of course the other part of the money that we’re going to be using is for our breakfast program, and that is about $15,000 per year. It goes a long way to support the two areas, but we’re still doing work to come up with a little bit more money.”
Larson says that one of the fundraisers he has planned for later this year is a magazine subscription drive.
