Riverview Elementary Hosted its Annual PPO Fall Festival 🎃 Bringing Family and Community Together
by Chloë Ranaldi
The event featured chili, a bake sale, a pumpkin patch, a family photo booth, games, popcorn and much more.
“This event is super special to Riverview Elementary School,” said Sabrina Soria, co-chair of the Parent Participation Organization (PPO).
“It’s the first occasion we have to bring everyone together in the fall, right after school starts and the weather is still nice, people can get popcorn, and baked goods.”
The annual PPO Fall Festival fair takes weeks for parent volunteers to organize.
“It’s a lot of work behind the scenes but it’s worth it,” said Soria. “We’re really lucky to have a super eager PPO.”
“Every week we do activities and we are reaching out to different organizations, whether it’s supermarkets to donate pumpkins, or getting ladles, or crockpots,” she said to make the event possible.
Soria says she’s happy to be involved, and it creates a sense of community “all the time you give, it really does give back in quality, you see people are happy about it and they are participating. It gives a sense of community and it knits the fabric of a good society and a good community, where people participate together, [and] they feel included.”
Allison Brown, the Principal at Riverview elementary school says everyone gets involved to make the Fall festival happen, including the students.
“Our leadership students, in grade six, are also assigned to different booths, and some of them are roaming around to assist people.”
Brown says part of the PPO mandate is to support the school’s educational projects, including raising funds for classroom projects, school wide projects, and some money is designated for their outdoor classroom.
Parent Johanne Turcotte, says the idea for the outdoor classroom started about four years ago, after she saw the outdoor classroom at Notre-Dame-De-La-Garde by the river.
They’re hoping to build the outdoor classroom right next to the school in Riverview Park.
She says the school has been in contact with the city to develop the project, with the goal of opening it to students in 2025.
