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Ponoka students take active part in relief effort

Ponoka Secondary Campus students took urgently needed relief supplies to two small communities over the weekend.
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PSC students taking a break during their trip to deliver supllies to two small communities over the weekend.

Willing to help the relief efforts for the Fort McMurray evacuees and using their connections with a province-wide Facebook group called Berta Boys & Babes, a group of Ponoka Secondary Campus students took urgently needed relief supplies to two small communities over the weekend after successfully fundraising within the community.

One member of the group, Alex Mercer, told Ponoka News that they had raised some $1,500 in donations to purchase toiletries, diapers, baby food, pet food and picked up a donation of water from Lacombe before driving first to Wandering River and then Boyle, two of the communities that were not registered as shelter for the evacuees from the massive wildfire.

He said after setting out on Friday, May 6, when the school was off for students, they first drove to Wandering River and left some of the aid supplies there before heading to Boyle and returned to Ponoka on Saturday evening.

“We slept in our trucks in the median on the highway on Friday night,” said Mercer.

The group consisted of Ashley Ancion, the lead contact with the Facebook group, Jeremie Key, Shawn Leonard and Mercer, all of whom took their trucks for the drive and they were joined in the effort by Josh Nobles, Nick Roy, Ty Ancion, Lorne Simms and Kyle Jesse.

Mercer said they would like to continue their efforts to support the relief work. Reminded that officials are asking no more aid material to be donated, he said they were going to target small communities which were not registered as shelters.