On December 14th, 2024, the last Saturday before winter break, dinner with Santa (previously breakfast with Santa) took place at ACE. This has been a tradition for so many years, even the staff don’t remember when it started. Although it is known how it started, with the love and support of a student parent, Glenda, one of our most senior teachers, commented, “We were selling wreaths and pinecones as a fundraiser for ACE and a parent suggested it to a student and worked with us to add to this tradition in a fun way that would be a greater success”. This demonstrates the support and love everyone connected to ACE provides; it’s always advertised as a family, but not truly understood until experienced. Anthony commented further on this by saying, “The main thing that impressed me with the
volunteers are that they showed a lot of heart and reverted away from frustration and anxiety even when they were dealing with new situations they don’t know how to handle.”
Breakfast with Santa is a high-paced event and is new to many of the people at the event supporting ACE. They had never been inside the school or were not bilingual and had trouble getting directions in the building or how the event worked. However, many students in the building were bilingual and directed and helped all the community, no matter how big or small the favor was. A big question to ask is the reasoning. How does this add to the ACE community, and change it? Glenda said something that changed the perspective of what people think of ACE “To get kids to create something, to follow kids on their journey that their ideas and creativity have a place and have fun in a safe positive environment and community that they created.”. That’s what so beautiful about this event is you can see how much the people around and helping care for the children and those who walks through that door to show support.˜
