The 600-member West Seneca Teachers' Association boasts a mobilized and proud membership that plays an integral part in its school district and Erie County community. Led by Joe Cantafio, the WSTA has been particularly active over the last few months, fighting back against misguided education proposals while serving the needs of its students and their families. Here is a wrap-up, along with some photos, from just some of the recent WSTA activities
WSTA Cares!
Despite the daily pressures of APPR, Common Core, constant legislative threats and actions from Governor Cuomo, WSTA members put students and West Seneca families first this holiday season. Earlier in December I sent out an e-mail asking WSTA members to share their buildings holiday story and the response back was great. Thank you to all whom contributed and please remember, if we don’t promote our positive actions who will? We as a union and profession must advocate for ourselves and promote the positive impacts we make every day.
West Senior High School
West Senior had an exceptional season of giving. Some of the highlights for the 2014-15 school year include: Key Club made 25 Build-A-Bears and hand delivered them to some of the sickest children at Women and Children’s Hospital. West Senior also donated 750 non-perishable food items to the West Seneca Kiwanis Good Thanksgiver program. Key Club helped to organize this collection. $700 was donated to the Movember Movement supporting the prevention of male cancers, thanks to 21 staff members growing facial hair. In addition, $750 worth of gifts and gift cards were delivered to Carly’s Club at Roswell Park Cancer Institute for their Pediatric Holiday Party. The Crushing Cancer Club oversaw the collections and organization of both of these great events.
West Senior also raised $500 by Santa on the Bridge. This will be donated to Reserve Fire Hall in memory of Officer Ron Piwowarczyk. This activity was sponsored by National Honor Society. $800 was donated to the West Seneca Cares for Kids Program, thanks to the collection efforts of the Social Studies Department. Over 70 children received gifts this year from the students and staff because of the Giving Tree sponsored by Key Club. It is with these efforts and contributions of WSTA members families all across West Seneca enjoyed a happier holiday season.
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West Middle
West Seneca West Middle had a very successful season of giving this year. The staff donated 12 boxes of non-perishable food items to the Kiwanis Good Thanksgiver program and 25 boxes of non-perishable food items to The West Seneca Lions Christmas Program. Staff members also donated $385.00 to the West Seneca Cares for Kids Program, $900.00 in teacher dress down funds were used to purchase Target & K-Mart gift cards for 18 West Seneca families and $400.00 and several gifts and gift cards were collected as well through the “Blizzard of Caring.”
East Middle School
On Friday November 7th, approximately 175-200 East Middle School 5th and 6th graders stayed after school to play in the 2nd Annual Kick Hunger Kickball Tournament, cheer on their friends, or watch the movie Frozen in the auditorium. The evening featured a kickball tournament that featured over 100 student participants. The kids played hard and their sportsmanship was outstanding.
The Kickball Tournament is the culminating event to a nearly two month long Food Drive. The Food Drive took place across all grade levels within the entire building, with donations being tallied in the students’ homeroom. The teachers did an amazing job publicizing the event as well as talking about the importance of giving back to our community. When it was all said and done, two truckloads of non-perishable food items were collected and immediately donated to the West Seneca Lions to be distributed in the community.
The event continues to be organized by the East Middle Leadership Cabinet; a select group of 7th and 8th grade students who, under advisement from teacher Jason Overton and School Counselor Warren Yokom, coordinate two major events a year.
Mr. Yokom and Mr. Overton would like to thank every student who donated to the Food Drive, every member of the staff who helped make the event a success, the East Middle PTO for their continued support, and the parents at home who supported the event with donations.
Events like this are teamwork in action. It’s really remarkable to see an idea come to fruition and to work in a building where you are supported from the top down. We remain in the debt of everyone who worked so hard. We live in a great community that has always been supportive of our schools. It’s important to us that the community knows how much we value and appreciate everything they do for us.
Additional Information:
• Approximately 50 printer boxes full to the brim. It took two truckloads for the WS Lions to get everything!
• Everything stayed in West Seneca with the Lion’s Club distributing our donations.
• No profit at this event or any event we run; every item is donated. Money made from selling donations from PTO offsets the costs of pizza and drinks.
Potters and Winchester Elementary
Denise Daley the librarian at Potters and Winchester received a grant from an organization called First Book and was able to purchase a new book for every student at Potters and Winchester. These books are for the children to keep and they were able to select the book that they wanted. There were many popular Disney princess books, Spider-Man, and award winning novels to choose from! Potters children received their book the day before Christmas vacation. Winchester children received their new book prior to the February vacation.
Allendale Elementary
The teachers and staff at Allendale Elementary sponsored six families for Christmas this year. We enjoyed shopping for presents from coats and pants, to books and dolls. We provided gifts for each child for every family. Along with the presents, a box perishable goods was also carefully assembled for the holiday season. The gifts were then wrapped up and decorated with bows and ribbons. The food and gifts were then delivered by “Santa’s helpers” to the local families. Allendale has been adopting families – those in need – from our school community for the last several years.
(Submitted by Paul Glieco of West Seneca TA)