{"id":26685,"date":"2020-06-04T18:35:20","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26685"},"modified":"2020-06-04T18:35:23","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:35:23","slug":"williams-student-recognized-by-school-board-for-community-outreach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/williams-student-recognized-by-school-board-for-community-outreach\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams student recognized by School Board for community outreach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Throughout her time at Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary\nSchool, Grade 12 student Christina Paraskevopoulos has been a dedicated leader\nboth within her school and throughout the wider York Region community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this spring, Christina was recognized by Neighbourhood\nNetwork and Magna International for her volunteerism with a 2020 Give Back\nAward and, most recently, she has been singled out by the York Region District\nSchool Board (YRDSB) in their Celebrating Student Success program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of 16 students to receive such recognition in 2020,\nChristina is the lone recipient from Aurora, an honour she does not take\nlightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe award means a lot,\u201d says Christina. \u201cI have had a\nlot of support from teachers and different students, and I am grateful to have\nhad different opportunities to be able to help out in our community \u2013\nthroughout Aurora and in my school, specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The YRDSB\u2019s Celebrating Student Success program\nrecognizes students for myriad accomplishments and achievements marked by\nupcoming grads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecognizing the\nmany wonderful and varied accomplishments of YRDSB students is\nimportant to our Board and to all of us who\nvalue student success in our school communities,\u201d said Juanita\nNathan, Chair of the YRDSB. \u201cOne way we recognize student excellence\nis through the annual Celebrating Student Success campaign,\nwhich highlights the achievements of students who are representative\nof the 128,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

students in our system\nachieving success every day with the support of YRDSB staff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Louise Sirisko, Director of\nEducation: \u201cThey demonstrate leadership and qualities that all of us admire.\nTheir accomplishments reflect persistence and hard work. They have achieved so\nmuch and we wish them continued success with the support of our\ndevoted staff and our partnership with our families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christina was nominated for the award by Williams\nguidance counsellor Mark Fuller, who helps spearhead the school\u2019s Peer Mentor\nprogram, of which Christina has been a leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was recognized as a \u201cconsistent and important\ncontributor to many community events, ranging from food drives to assisting at\nruns to support charitable causes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her leadership role in continuing a school swabbing drive\nin aid of Canadian Blood Services\u2019 national bone marrow registry, which has\nhelped more than 100 members of the Williams community sign up was also\ncelebrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a leader of the school\u2019s Me to We program, Christina\nwas instrumental in collecting more than 1,300 books for organizations in need\nwhile also selling rafiki bracelets to raise money for mothers in Africa.\nFurther efforts in a school food drive this past fall resulted in collecting\nmore than 1,000 food items for the Aurora Food Pantry while also raising money\nfor under-supported areas in Kenya through bake sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI joined our peer mentor group in Grade 10,\u201d says\nChristina. \u201cI was first exposed to our peer mentor group in Grade 9 and I loved\nthe impact they had on me; it definitely made school feel more welcoming and I\nwanted to be able to do the same thing for the new Grade 9s in the years after.\nWhen I joined, I stayed involved through the years and was able to become one\nof the head mentors this year. We helped organize our meetings and different\ninitiatives we all take part in. One of my favourite initiatives I have been a\npart of through the years is the swabbing drive. Unfortunately, we weren\u2019t able\nto have it this year [due to school closures resulting from COVID-19], but it\nmeans a lot to me because I had an uncle pass away from blood cancer when I was\nvery young and this has always been an initiative that is very important to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor as long as I can remember, I have always loved\nhelping others and helping out where I can do different things. I know I am\nthankful for everything I have in my life and I am very happy for a lot of things.\nBeing able to take my time or any resources I may have and bring them to our\ncommunity or to other people who may need some help or just to raise awareness\nfor other important issues. It just means a lot to me and it means a lot to see\nhow our volunteering effects these groups positively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she prepares to finish Grade 12, Christina is looking forward to a post-secondary career at the University of Western Ontario for a combined degree in science and Honours Business Administration at the Ivey School of Business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout her time at Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School, Grade 12 student Christina Paraskevopoulos has been a dedicated leader both within her school and throughout the wider York Region community. Earlier this spring, Christina was recognized by Neighbourhood Network and Magna International for her volunteerism with a 2020 Give Back Award and, most recently, she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26685","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\/2020\/06\/2020-06-04-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Wp","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 06:53:53","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\/26685","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=26685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}