The Messenger speaks to Riverview’s Jennifer Holmes

Mr. Poirier had mentioned to us at the time, that this particular school body was in a shambles, that she was the one who would turn it around, and with her drive and fellow associates on Home and School, we watched her do just that and the Riverview Home and School started to rock and roll with an abundance of activities and money to spend for student’s activities, and we couldn’t keep up with all the notices coming in to this column, but that was then.

That young lady is none other than Miss Jennifer Holmes, who we nicknamed that first year, the “mild-mannered one”. This year she was re-elected to her old post as H. and S. President after a two-year slowdown to further her education, and no doubt found out that things had changed. We caught up with Jennifer recently over coffee for an exclusive chat about what drives her and a candid look about today’s and tomorrow’s challenges of scholastic fund-raising and the future does not seem rosy.

Jennifer got started with the school back 10 years ago as she says that she doesn’t do well sitting still doing nothing. Jennifer continues, “I was at home with a younger child, so I needed something extra to do, I went into the school and was asked to stick around to meet with the PPO at the time, as we didn’t have a Home and School. I just started getting busy, getting what they needed, and within 6 months I was asked to assist in filing for membership in Home and School.” Jennifer was secretary of PPO at the time.

We asked Jennifer about some highlights through the years and went back in time. “The first thing I was really excited about working on was the Christmas bazaar, it was a lot of fun, we had a canteen going and we were cooking up hamburgers and hot dogs, this was about 8 years ago, and then we started doing bingos, which was fun getting to see the public and the community as a whole, and not just a few parents here and there, so those two things were a lot of fun to start up at the school,” stated Jennifer with a touch of nostalgia.

Bob Dylan once sang, “The Times are a Changin” and they sure are at Riverview like other schools, and with student populations down, the cultural makeup changing which most people don’t like to talk about, fundraising has become a challenge, events have been cancelled for lack of interest like the recent Breakfast with Santa in support of the grads, and funds raised are down thus possibly causing some activities to be no longer funded and possible cuts in field trip funding.

“It’s becoming more and more complicated, in the sense of having more restrictions with what we’re allowed to do, and with the aspect of nutrition we had to reduce and change hot lunch programs, menus, and snacks, also the sales of chocolate, obviously was our biggest hit, since it was our start-up fundraiser, it was one of the ones that we used to depend on to support 90 % of activities throughout the year,” said Jennifer in a tone of disappointment.

And the profits were big time then, bringing in about 7 to 8 thousand which took care of up front stuff, and in later years with drops in student numbers, it went down to 3 to 4 thousand , although it did cover a good chunk of what Home and School was supporting.

It should be noted here that whether or not to sell chocolates is not a decision taken at the Board level, but it’s left for the local Governing Boards to decide. So, as they say, don’t blame Home and School.

Jennifer continues, “now with no chocolate sales I would have to say we are struggling this year and there is a drop in parent and family participation, but I don’t know if it’s just a population drop or an interest change.”

Most people know Jennifer through her work with Home and School, but most don’t know that she’s really a jack-of-all trades at Riverview. She runs the school library in a most effective manner and re-started the highly popular lunchtime book club, she helps out Audrey Ottier with the CLC, and does PR duties for the school like keeping up the website, and needless to say, has the enviable task of dealing with your friendly local reporter.

It would seem that Jennifer loves challenges, like she did last summer with her family when swinging from tree to tree and the ultimate rush like parachuting out of a plane with some people calling her nuts.

“Well life in general is meant to be experienced my dear, it’s meant to be experienced, adventure is part of the game, the more challenges you set for yourself, the more fun you have, the more you touch other people’s lives, so I think Home and School is a fantastic place to get to know families, also to network as we are isolated a lot of times, says Jennifer in that pleasant tone that we have come to know.

We wanted to know some of her likes and dislikes and spotted some challenges. “I’m a sci-fi chick, I like science fiction, any adventure films, I don’t watch much TV, and as long as my doctor doesn’t hear this, I like Indian food, anything spicy, I like to try all different kinds of foods, and I’ll try anything once, but might not like them all,” says Jennifer with that cute grin enough to make this writer blush slightly.

But when asked about how she saw Home and Schools in 5 to 10 years and whether they will continue to be viable entities, her tone turned serious and somewhat pessimistic.

Jennifer states, “I think Home and Schools are in for a huge change, a change in responsibilities, and I think there’s huge troubles at the Provincial and National level, with more and more families having both parents working, there’s less participation and less interest in volunteerism, it seems a problem all across Canada, I see that Home and Schools are not going to be playing an active role in fund-raising and I see a cut in funding activities.

We used to have 15 to 20 people available at all times to do different activities and now we’re lucky if we have 5, so that’s quite a drop. Membership has dropped in a lot of schools. I have also heard that there are some restructuring ideas that have been passed at the provincial level which haven’t been popular as people are having trouble moving from their comfort zone and it’s not just working anymore, chocolate sales are just the tipoff the iceberg.” It would seem that a proper ending for this feature would be, “To Be Continued.”