Starting off Charity Bash with a bang is always a priority for Student Council, and they continued the tradition of an educational and eventful assembly on Wednesday, November 30.
This year’s charity is the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Crohn’s and Colitis are diseases that affect the digestive tract and can have serious side effects such as stomach pain or ulcers, and in severe cases, cause hospitalization.

The assembly started off with speeches from Megan Ewan, senior and previous Colitis patient, and a video including interviews of Linde Parcels, senior Crohn’s patient, and Jake Thornton, junior Crohn’s patient.

The students shared their knowledge about the diseases, as well as their personal experiences, to help the students understand how the diseases affect not only millions of lives, but the lives of 13 students in their own school.

Parcels stressed the fact that digestive diseases don’t only affect patients physically, but take an emotional toll on patients. After Ewan’s speech and the video of Parcels and Thornton, Laura Fonte, history teacher, spoke to the students.

Fonte mentioned how she was diagnosed with ulcerative Colitis in 2010 and how this immediately had an impact on her life. She has been hospitalized twice this year and can no longer eat many foods which her body find hard to digest.

After Fonte was finished speaking, selected students acted out scenes of Charity Bash events, such as the Dodgeball Tournament, the Badminton Tournament, the Talent Show, and the Winter Dance.

A list of Charity Bash events can be found on the Bear Facts webpage.