Fundraising for a Snoezelen room at SLHS

Nov 05, 2009

SLHS School to Community student Mitchell Combe in the Snoezelen Room’s “Floating Leaf” chair

Teachers and staff at Sharbot Lake High School are continuing their fundraising efforts to purchase a Snoezelen (pronounced “SNOOzelen”) Room for the school, to be used by students in the School to Community class there.

The room offers tools and materials that provide controlled multi-sensory stimulation to students with developmental disabilities, autism and attention deficit disorders.

Like Snoezelen Room fundraising efforts at other local schools, the SLHS project was initiated by an educational assistant in the School to Community program there. SLHS educational assistant Josh Goodfellow began the campaign when he witnessed first-hand the benefits the facility had on students in his class. What he saw convinced him to initiate a fundraising campaign to acquire the school's very own facility.

Currently SLHS students are bussed every other week to the existing Snoezelen Room at North Addington Education Centre in Cloyne, with financial help from Community Living-North Frontenac in Sharbot Lake.

Though beneficial to students, the logistics of transporting a limited number of students for a limited number of visits is not ideal. In SLHS's School to Community class, Josh and three other educational assistants, Amy Thompson, Mary-Joy Neadow and Janice Kellar are hoping to change that.

Josh started fundraising for the $10,000+ project last summer and applied for a grant first from the Limestone Learning Foundation (LLF), which was turned down because it didn’t meet certain criteria. The LLF then forwarded the application to the Community Foundation for Kingston and Area and the project received a $2000 grant.

Josh and his team continued their efforts and organized a baseball tournament in Parham last summer that raised another $1000 for the cause. CL-NF recently donated $1,000 to the project.

On Friday, Oct. 30 when I met with Josh and Tammy Steele, one of two School to Community teachers at SLHS, he had just wrapped up their month-long teacher torture fundraiser which raised another $350.

For Josh the project is an important one. He said, “Having a room of our own will allow more students to have access to it more often. And there will be long-term cost savings as well.”

Tammy Steele explained, “The Snoezelen Room provides both stimulation and relaxation to students in ways that the environment of a regular classroom cannot. It offers the students freedom of choice in a safe and non-intimidating environment and invites them to make their own decisions.” She added, “We’re really excited and hope to acquire the room this year.”

Next on the fundraising agenda is a Silent Auction/ Wine and Cheese Event that will be held on Friday, November 6 at 7PM at the school. The $12 ticket includes a glass of wine and live entertainment by an all-teacher band and grade 11 student singer Maggie Campbell.

For more information or to purchase tickets, please contact SLHS at 613-279-2131 or contact Josh Goodfellow, Amy Thompson, Mary-Joy Neadow, Janice Kellar or Tammy Steele.

Kudos to SLHS student Jonathon Gillies who helped design the poster for the event.