Kids get cracking on this year’s batch of Christmas crackers

The Aspenwood Elementary students trick-or-treated with Christmas crackers on their minds.

By early November, the Halloween candy had migrated from bowls to bags to the bins stacked in the office of longtime teacher Ann Kirkhope.

“We don’t give kids enough credit for their compassion and willingness to be kind to others,” she says.

For around 30 years, students in elementary and middle schools around the Tri-Cities have been assembling around 1,000 Christmas crackers each November. Those crackers are given to local seniors homes to be cracked over Christmas dinner.

For some seniors, those crackers are the only present they get, Kirkhope notes.

Carol Todd started the program at Kilmer Elementary in the 1990s. Kirkhope says she jumped at the chance to bring the program to her students.

“Kids learn best when they have that social/emotional connection,” she says.

It was a chance to do something for the community. But it was also a way to hone a type of generosity that’s easy to lose, Kirkhope notes: “That ability to give back and not expect anything back in return.”

While the program lasts for about six weeks, Kirkhope says she thinks about it year-round.

She reaches out to seniors homes and presents the project to school staff. And while the children donate a portion of their Halloween candy, the PAC pays for the cracker snapper and parents contribute wrapping paper, Kirkhope sets about collecting toilet paper rolls.

“The entire community gets involved and then everybody gets to see the end product,” she says, adding some of her Grade 8 students also turn up to assist the elementary school children.

But as much as the project relies on teachers and parents, the crackers are crafted children.

“Most of the stuff that goes in the cracker is all done by children,” she says.

The youngest students colour Christmas pictures and students in Grades 2 through 5 write messages to the seniors.

A few years back, seniors at the Astoria returned the favour by sewing Halloween bags for the students. It was a gesture that reinforced the importance of the program for the students, Kirkhope says.

“Every little bit of kindness goes such a long way.”