Since returning from March Break, the Grade 10 Careers’ students have been working hard on their YPI (Youth & Philanthropy Initiative, https://www.goypi.org/) projects. This is an opportunity for students to learn about the numerous community charities in the GTA. Students pick one of these community based charities, complete research on it, and then make a presentation to their Careers’ teacher. Following that, the teachers select the top 3 presentations who then do their presentations again to a panel of judges consisting of students and teachers. The winning group wins a $5000 grant for their charity. In past years, these final presentations are completed in front of the entire school as well so that they to can learn about some of these terrific organizations.
Normally, students would have the opportunity during this project to visit the charity they were researching. But because of the current COVID-19 crisis, this was not an option this year. However, we still felt it was important for students to have the opportunity to research and learn about these charities in the GTA. With modifications to the standard YPI project, the Careers students were able to complete Powerpoint presentations using online research.
After reviewing all of the presentations, Mr Vovk and Mr Smith selected three groups to compete in the finals. This past week, we hosted our finals on Zoom. The judges consisted of Ms Sommerville and Ms Young along with last year’s YPI winners, Yael Haas, Anjali Juneja, and Peter Hull. The three finalists this year were:
-The North York Harvest Food Bank, by Kian Torabi, Jay Lu, Gabriel Pogrin
-Lay Up, by David Dai
-The New Mom Project, by James Szabo
All three made excellent cases for why their charity should receive the $500 grant. After much deliberation, the judges declared the winner of the 2020 Crestwood YPI Finals was the North York Harvest Foodbank. This charity will be receiving a $5000 grant due to the hard work of Kian, Jay, and Gabriel.
To see the presentations in its entirety, please click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Mr Vovk and Mr Smith would like to thank all the Careers’ students for their hard work throughout the process. We would also like to acknowledge the people at YPI for continuing to offer this opportunity. We hope that next year we will be able to host the YPI Finals again back at Crestwood and continue our strong relationship with YPI.
