Students at Oilfields School have upped their offerings at this year’s winter market.
The annual event has added 45 silent auction items from businesses in the community that vary from gift cards to popular local eateries like the Longview Steakhouse and Chuckwagon Café as well as niche items from area stores like a skateboard and a handmade bee hotel.
The online auction went live Nov. 26 and closes on Dec. 3.
The in-person Winter Market, with student-made goods, will be held at Oilfields High School Dec. 2 from 4-7:30 p.m.
Grade 11 students Lucas Mauchline and Makayla Brown are helping to organize this year’s event.
The two approached businesses and other organizations to donate to the online auction and were impressed with the response.
“We got a free growler refill from Hard Knox,” said Mauchline. “We got a ton of board games from a little craft store and all of that is going towards, let’s say, new badminton nets for the athletics program or we are trying to upgrade the kitchen at the school to a commercial kitchen.”
The Calgary Stampeders also provided a signed 2018 Grey Cup helmet worth $450 and some apparel for the silent auction.
A group of students has also been coming to the school after hours to bake and create handmade items for the Winter Market.
“The shop is making charcuterie board and possibly some cutting boards,” said Brown. “The foods program is making cookie boxes and… there is pretzels with pop and a cookie. Then there is bath salts and bath soaps that volunteers have made and chocolate bombs.”
The online silent auction items will be on display at the Winter Market and links to the auction items will be available for people to access at the market to make their bids.
Oilfields Learning Commons facilitator, Cindy Watts, started a volunteer leadership program for grades 7 to 12 and said the goal is to get the students involved in initiatives that involve them in the community and support the school’s goals.
“We want to empower them,” she said.
Mauchline and Brown are in the volunteer leadership program, which includes other activities, including decorating storefronts for Christmas.
Mauchline said the experience this year has been transformative.
“It’s really fulfilling I think,” Mauchline said. “There is a reason I’m doing this and it’s because it feels good.”
The money raised from the Winter Market supports the school’s career and technology classes, like foods, digital technology and shop class, as well as a sustainability initiative, which includes an agriculture program.
Watts said they hope to raise $15,000 which will help toward increasing the garden beds at the school, building compost receptacles, building an outdoor classroom and upgrading the foods kitchen to commercial grade.
The idea is to give students a kitchen that will allow them to cook and sell more types of food, cater events and provide food to outside facilities.
