Carolyn Breen wrote a letter expressing disappointment that one of the Catholic high schools in Barrie had its lights on during Earth Hour.

Because we fully support and value the World Wildlife Fund’s efforts in organizing the Earth Hour initiative, we immediately looked into Ms. Breen’s concern.

We discovered that, in fact, the lights were on at St. Joan of Arc High School in Barrie because of a function at the school that evening.

Through our community use of schools program, our facilities are often used outside of school hours by external community groups, and this was the case at St. Joan of Arc on the evening of March 29.   
We sincerely appreciate Ms. Breen’s concern and want to assure everyone in the St. Joan of Arc neighbourhood that we will continue to make every possible effort to fully respect initiatives such as these.

She is absolutely correct that Earth Hour is a fabulous tribute to the work ahead of each one of us to promote energy conservation and, as a Catholic organization, we are deeply committed to that cause.

All of the schools in our board actively participated in Earth Hour on the Friday and were encouraged to take the conservation lessons they learned home to their families.

Our students and staff embraced Earth Hour in a number of ways including turning the lights off on March 28th for one hour when school was in session.

At St. Joan of Arc, they participated in an environmental education assembly and raising funds in support of the environment. St. Joan of Arc is also actively involved in the Ontario EcoSchools program.