The EcoVision Club of Lacombe Composite High School has blown passed their fundraising efforts for their latest project thanks to a generous donation from Co-op, as part of their Community Spaces program.

$50,000 will go towards EcoVision’s ‘Roofs 4 Kids’, a project that will add a living goat barn and a rooftop garden to LCHS, along with the ability to collect their own rainwater, install solar panels, as well as plant fruit and vegetable gardens to become totally self-sustainable. 

The project has been in the works for about three years now, and the donation from Co-op puts them well past their $100,000 fundraising goal, their most ambitious project to date.

Teacher advisor for the EcoVision Club Steven Schultz says thanks to this donation, they'll be able to fill the goat barn with 6 goats the next few months. He feels it's an especially important project during these uncertain times.

“Kids are going to come back to a different type of schooling and there’s going to be students that need, not only alternative course but opportunities to relieve stress. So we’re going to start what we’re going to call, our “Baby Kids” Program, and that’s when kids can go and interact with the goats to relieve stress, or if they are feeling anxious about anything, even if they are not members of the EcoVision Club.”

They are also hoping members of the public will get involved through their 'Adopt a Kid' program.

“Basically, the ‘Adopt a Kid’ program has two rules and responsibilities: during the evenings they just come and check in on the goats to make sure that they are faring well, and on weekends. So it’s like half an hour commitment a week, and we just want to have a group of community families that are willing to pitch in, they’ll be some training that goes along with that…and that’s open to anyone in the community.”

Any additional funding will go towards landscaping around the goat sanctuary, as well as creating a ‘Circle of Knowledge’ that contains information about the native plants and vegetation in the area.

While the EcoVision Club enters the construction stage of the Roofs for Kids, Shultz says they already have ideas for their next project which is still in its early stages.

Earlier this year, their school was in talks with people from York University in Toronto who were impressed with the amount of student engagement at LCHS.

They were invited to a summit in Ontario to pitch their ideas, network with other like-minded schools across the country, and hopefully set some of the LCHS kids up for future scholarships.

Unfortunately, the current global pandemic put those plans on hold for now, but that won’t stop the club from coming up with ideas for their next project, which he says will involve tackling the issue of food waste recovery.

For more information on how to get involved with the EcoVision’s Adopt a Kid program and all the latest projects with the Ecovision club, you can click here to check out their website.

Co-op Community Spaces was developed to help protect, beautify and improve spaces across Western Canada. To date, they’ve provided $1 million to 17 community projects from Manitoba all the way to Vancouver Island, donating $9.5 million to 132 projects since 2015.