Interim Staff

Students are a common summertime sight at most organizations and Campaign Life Coalition is no exception. Hiring students enables busy full-time staff to schedule much needed vacation time and to complete those projects requiring energy, leg work and attention to detail.

Campaign Life Coalition’s Toronto office has benefited with the addition of three summer students who have taken on an assortment of projects between June and September. CLC also enjoys the input of other students who work on a part time basis between September and June.

Anna Halpine, 18, a second-year music student at Mount Allison University in Sacksville, New Brunswick, recently completed a two month placement at Campaign Life Coalition’s Toronto office. Most of her time was spent indexing the office’s photo library and updating the newspaper filing system.

Fund-raiser

As well, Anna headed up a special fundraising project involving the sale of poinsettia plants. The plants will be sold during the Christmas season with proceeds going in support of Campaign Life. Anna was responsible for contacting suppliers and tracking down churches, schools and other institutions where the plants will be sold.

It was fairly involved project for a summer student, but Anna and her student co-workers enjoyed the challenge.

The Halpine family has been involved in pro-life work for several years. Anna herself was active in pro-life efforts as a student at Danforth Collegiate in Toronto. Although public high schools aren’t noted for strong sympathy for the unborn, Anna was never shy about showing her commitment. She remembers completing a school project about the anti-family tendencies of the Planned Parenthood organization. Despite her teacher’s clear support of Planned Parenthood, Anna’s project was thorough enough to claim a few controverts.

Anna called it “a natural progression” to wind up as a summer student at the CLC Toronto office.

Positive experience

“It has been a positive experience,” Anna said prior to her July 10 departure. “Even if the work involved menial administrative tasks, it was all for a good cause.”

While Anna was involved in specific projects during her tenure, 19 year-old James Evans has taken on a versatile approach to his summer work at CLC. James, who will be on hand until the end of August, is involved in many aspects of the day-to-day operations of the office. He answers phones, makes bank deposits, enters material into the CLC database, and runs errands as needed.

James will be entering the journalism project at King’s Collage of Dalhousie University in Halifax this September. To gain a little first hand experience in the news gathering business, James has taken on a few reporting assignments for The Interim. He recently prepared the Across Canada new round-up section and completed a story on the newspaper’s new managing editor. Other assignments may follow.

“I find it’s a learn-as-you-go environment around here,” James said. “You learn not only about the job but about the central issues in the pro-life movement.”

This is James’ second summer at Campaign Life Coalition. He worked at CLC for the summer of 1995 and helped out every second afternoon during the 1995/96 school year.

James is no newcomer to the pro-life effort. He brought a pro-life voice to the Danforth Collegiate community and he is active with Students against Violation of Life (SAVOL).

Another student, Emma McCash, has worked part-time at CLC since the spring of 1995. She is involved primarily in reorganizing the organization’s filing system.

Emma plans to return second-year arts studies at the University of Toronto in September.

The youngest member of this summer’s CLC student workforce is Leilani Nolan, 17, an OAC student at Hawthorn School for Girls in Don Mills. Leilani works two to three days a week in the downtown office where she supports the poinsettia fundraiser and other administrative functions. This is her first summer at CLC.

Leilani, who is also active with the SAVOL organization, said many of her peers do not seem open to the pro-life message. She said working at the heart of Canada’s pro-life political arm has strengthened her commitment to the unborn.

“You can’t help but increase your support of the organization by keeping up on the latest events,” Leilani said.

“Anyone would have their eyes opened to key life issues by spending some time in this office.”

Leilani and a number of her fellow students from Hawthorn School got Girls recently served as hosts at the Panamerican Conference on Family and Education.

Versatile

Campaign Life Coalition recently said good-bye to student David Rebello, 19, who in June accepted a temporary position with an engineering company. David completed high school in January, and was involved in a variety of duties, such as alerting the media to CLC initiatives and retrieving pro-life and pro-family information from the Internet. Like many students, David proved versatile, and many full-time staff members became dependent on his energy, talent and enthusiasm.

David’s plans are to enroll in the University of Toronto’s engineering school in September.