A group of Surrey students have not only surpassed their fundraising goal, but achieved the milestone one year earlier than expected, as they worked to raise money for a culturally sensitive long-term care facility for seniors to be built in the city.
L.A. Matheson Secondary students, under the oversight of their teacher Gurpreet Kaur Bains, pledged in April 2021 to raise $13,000 within four years, but thanks to the efforts of everyone involved, they’ve managed to raise $13,508 for the building of Guru Nanak Diversity Senior Care Home.
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“The students really pushed hard and raised $2,237 within two weeks in April during Sikh Heritage Month,” said Bains, Punjabi teacher and head of the school’s languages department.
“We’re an inner-city school, we always require funding for different things, so for our kids to go out of their way and advocate, talk to businesses, talk to community members, families and to step up and take on this project is a big deal for us.”
It’s an effort that included students of different ages, some of whom have now graduated. The fundraising was carried out each April.
The new long-term care facility is currently awaiting a building permit from the City of Surrey and, it is hoped, will break ground in the fall, said Satbir Cheema, CEO of Progressive Intercultural Community Services (PICS) Society – the organization that will operate the facility.
With 125 beds, the three-storey space is expected to stand at 6471 175A St. in Surrey. It will operate under the auspices of Fraser Health Authority, in partnership with BC Housing.
“This is something that PICS has been planning for eight, nine years,” Cheema said.
Being South Asian, Cheema and Bains both have seen seniors from their community struggle with the current options available for long-term care.
“We know so many seniors don’t speak the English language, they have not lived all their lives eating Western foods, so when they are seniors and they need healthcare or (to be) in a full-time care facility and they end up in one where nobody is understanding them or they don’t get their regular food that they are familiar with, it really takes a toll on their mental health,” said Bains.
Although the need was initially outlined for South Asian seniors, the facility will aim to provide culturally-sensitive care to everyone who is referred, regardless of race or ethnicity, Cheema said.
Getting high school students involved was easy, as they saw the same issues, the teacher added. The fundraising project began when pandemic restrictions didn’t allow for gatherings, which made celebrating Vaisakhi — a Punjabi spring harvest festival celebrated every April — difficult.
Social distancing was tougher for seniors than most, Bains added. And so, her Punjabi-class students decided to observe the event in a different way in 2021.
“A lot of our kids live with grandparents at home, they have been raised by grandparents, some of them, because mom and dad are working. So they have a core connection with their grandparents,” she explained.
“When kids see that seniors are in need, they have given them so much, providing for them — a lot of us don’t use child-care facilities, it’s the grandparents who provide daycare. Our kids know how much they provide for them and they feel like, in their senior years, if they need something then we need to come through for them.”
Cheema said that there are hundreds of seniors in hospital who need long-term care and are waiting to access it.
“It’s very important to free those beds,” he said.
“I’m sure that when we open the doors and fill the rooms, there will (still) be so many waiting in the hospital.”
Cheema added that the fundraising efforts of the students is an incredible contribution and the organization is very grateful. So much so, in fact, that once the new building is built and operating, a room will be dedicated to L.A. Matheson students.
“They’re our future leaders,” he said. “They really stepped up and showed their commitment.”
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