Traditional Grade 8 Ottawa trip
'always awesome'
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
The Grade 8 class will be making its traditional trip to Ottawa this week and organizer Rena Ridley expects it will be another very memorable event.

“It’s always been an awesome trip and the highlight of the year,” says Ridley, office administrator.

Every June the Grade 8 class at Rhema Christian School makes a several-day trip to Ottawa. Usually the Grade 8 teacher plans and organizes the trip, but since this year’s teacher, Steve Savoy, is new to the school, Ridley took on the task.

“We didn’t think it would be fair to put that on him,” she says.

Twenty-nine students and nine parents will be leaving early Wednesday morning for the capital city.

They will be visiting the Diefenbunker, an underground nuclear bunker built in secrecy during the height of the Cold War between 1959 and 1961 and meant to house top official leaders in the event of a nuclear attack.

The first day they will also tour Ottawa on a double-decker bus, visit the Imax Theater and have a buffet supper, says Ridley.

The group will spend Wednesday night at Carleton University residence followed by a day at Mount Cascade, a water slide park. They will have dinner at the Canadian Aviation Museum and spend the night there, sleeping under the planes.

Friday will include a tour of Ottawa with a visit to the National Gallery of Canada and the Parliament Buildings.

On arriving back at the school Friday evening, the students will each receive a package including report cards, grad pictures and other mementos from the school year.

“That’s when they say their good-byes and head off on their separate ways,” says Ridley. “It’s very sentimental. There are a lot of a tears at that point.”

The Grade 8 class did a number of fundraising activities this year to help with the costs of the Ottawa trip. In May, the class organized and ran a fun fair as well as hosted a coffee house. Students could also do their own fundraising for the trip and many chose to rake leaves and mow lawns.