{"id":24678,"date":"2019-09-12T17:15:53","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T21:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24678"},"modified":"2019-09-20T17:46:37","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T21:46:37","slug":"student-hoedown-marks-fifth-year-of-building-an-inclusive-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/student-hoedown-marks-fifth-year-of-building-an-inclusive-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Hoedown marks fifth year of building an inclusive community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer holiday\nis, for some students, a time of rest and relaxation, and maybe making some\nextra money while school is out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For others, it was\nall that and more after finding out in June they had scored a coveted ticket to\nthe fifth annual Student Hoedown, which marks its fifth anniversary in Aurora\nthis Friday, September 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Student Hoedown\nwas founded in 2014 by York Region District School Board Special Needs teachers\nDerek Bunn and Dave Pilkey as a way to get their students \u2013 and Special Needs\nstudents from across the Region in both school boards \u2013 a chance to have fun\nand give back to their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring live music\nfrom the Top 10 finalists in the 2010 Magna Hoedown, a chance to dance, have\ngreat food, and meet heroes brought to life by Marquee Theatrical Productions,\nall in a setting tailored to meet the needs of individuals who might have\nsensory challenges, it was a huge hit from the outset and has only grown over\nthe last four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is probably one\nof the few concerts that our kids with disabilities can go where it is\ninclusive, where it is modified for them to enjoy with the sound and lights at\na certain level, and everyone is there to make it work,\u201d says Mr. Bunn, a\nteacher at Sutton District High School. \u201cThe people are appreciative of having\nthe students there and the students are appreciative because it is an\nadult-style concert without their parents, and it is another step towards kids\nlearning about independence and learning about community and belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven though this is\nin September and we\u2019re in the third week of school, for kids to say in\nSeptember this is the best school trip of the year, I am very happy about that\n\u2013 well, I\u2019m also kind of sad that the rest of the school trips aren\u2019t going to\nbe that great! \u2013 but it makes me feel good and it sure makes Neighbourhood\nNetwork, Magna and the hundreds of volunteers that help out those days feel\ngood as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead to\nFriday\u2019s event, which will take place under the big top of the Hoedown Tent, Mr.\nBunn says he sees the fifth anniversary as something of a \u201crebirth.\u201d When they\nfirst started out, he and Mr. Pilkey weren\u2019t quite sure they would be able to\npull off their vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were a lot of\naches and pains and planning for Year One, then when you saw it happening, you\nthought, \u2018We just stumbled upon something really amazing and wonderful for our\nstudents, community and charities.\u2019 In Year One, we were just in awe. It was\nanother added bonus to the Hoedown weekend and each year it became easier in\nthe planning and making sure everything was done right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow that we\u2019re at\nYear Five, oh, my goodness, it\u2019s like we\u2019re starting Kindergarten and that\u2019s\nwonderful. Every student and every adult coming into the tent is bringing a\ncharitable donation to all those charities Magna supports [through Hoedown] and\nthat\u2019s a big message for our students and part of the spirit \u2013 we\u2019re giving\nback to the community and we\u2019re giving back to all those charities that help\nout people in the community. For kids who maybe feel they can\u2019t contribute to\ntheir community in a positive way, that gives them the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With each passing\nyear of the Student Hoedown, Mr. Bunn says he\u2019s staggered by the sheer level of\nparticipation from students, teachers, caregivers, performers and organizers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou come here\nexpecting just a concert and the Hoedown finalists, but there is so much going\non in the tent, and one year we even had a horse and rider come into the tent,\u201d\nhe says. \u201cOutside the tent, there\u2019s Selena Stronach and her cows, and last year\nthere was an equal number of people outside getting their pictures taken with\nall the cows and all the stuff Selena was able to provide as inside the tent.\nThen, when you\u2019re inside the tent, the people are dressed up from Marquee and\nSuperman is there and the students can\u2019t believe they met Superman!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis event brings energy, it brings people\ntogether, people are meeting people from other schools, sharing, and all under\nthe blanket of a fundraising event that is totally accessible. The accessible\nwashroom trailer (built with contributions from York Region municipalities like\nAurora) is going to be there, EMS is going to be there; there is no country\nmusic fundraiser in York Region that is 100
\nper cent inclusive, but the Magna Hoedown is.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The summer holiday is, for some students, a time of rest and relaxation, and maybe making some extra money while school is out….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/2019-09-12-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6q2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 11:21:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}