Students win $5,000 for Hope in Shadows

February 24, 2009 - Four high school students from St. John's School in Kitsilano, Vancouver won $5,000 for Hope in Shadows in a contest looking at local Vancouver non-profits.

The students who put together the 10-minute presentation about Hope in Shadows were Mia Kot, Thomas (TK) Kim, Edward Tseng and Yolanda Lin. St. John's School was one of 35 schools in B.C. who took part in the annual Youth Philanthropy Initiative contest run by the Toskan Casale Foundation.

The contest, held on February 9 at the school, was judged by the Toskan Casale Foundation staff and students from St. John's School. Representatives from the four non-profits featured attended the presentations.

After the presentation Paul Ryan from Hope in Shadows said that it means a lot to know that the efforts made by people to make Hope in Shadows successful are noticed and acknowledged by others. "The $5,000 prize money will be very useful in these times of financial uncertainty - although Hope in Shadows has been a huge success in the selling of the calendar, we still rely on partnerships with sponsors and we do not know how that will go this year." Ryan said that the money will go directly towards printing the 2010 calendar.

Senior School Teacher Mr. Colin Jack said that the students involved with the project were very excited about winning the cheque for Hope in Shadows and that they had worked extremely hard on the project