Celebrating your birthday is a special occasion for a child. Some schools give birthday shoutouts during morning announcements, or your class will sing you Happy Birthday.
At Kelowna Christian School, the head of school, Mike Campbell personally delivers a Kinder Surprise egg.
With COVID-19 shutting schools down for over a month, the tradition was put on hold, that was until Campbell decided to take the show on the road.
The first “Operation Kinder Surprise” ranged from Okanagan Golf and Country Club to near the Nordic Park in West Kelowna and took around eight hours to complete.
“The first time around was just after Easter. I had 29 to deliver because I had to catch up for the past month… across the board, the kids were just so excited to get an egg,” says Campbell.
“I was so happy to see the kids, the kids were so happy to see me and an added bonus was talking to the parents. Even though we had to social distance, we were able to share and talk about how parents are doing and how they’re feeling.”
During Tuesday’s delivery, eight children were waiting for Campbell to come to their houses in the Kelowna Christian School bus to bring them their birthday present.
“There’s something about the bus that creates comfort for the kids — a lot of our children ride the bus for field trips and it makes it feel more like it’s a part of the school than something I’m doing on my own.”
“My job as Head of School is K-to-12 and with almost 800 students, it’s hard to get to know kids in the classroom, in the trenches. I took this job because I want to know kids, and being able to give every child a Kinder egg on their birthday allows me to say hello to every child at some point in the year.”
He says it’s their goal to remain together from afar and to build a community during these tough times.
“The parents love it, the kids love it, I love it - it’s just a win, win, win all around,” says Campbell.
“Families all have their own struggles right now and it’s nice that we can be normal at a time when things aren’t really normal.”
The initiative started eight years ago at Campbell’s former school. After his family moved to Kelowna, he brought the tradition to KCS.
“It’s not for publicity, it’s just a nice thing to do - if I could stay connected to our families in these times, I’m doing my job,” says Campbell.
If you want to see a Facebook post with pictures of each child with their Kinder Surprise the link is here.
