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Kinnaird Elementary joins the Stream of Dreams

The grounds at Kinnaird Elementary got a whole lot brighter last week with the installation of 350 colourful fish on the fence around the school.
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Students

The grounds at Kinnaird Elementary got a whole lot brighter last week with the installation of 350 colourful fish on the fence around the school.

Known as the Stream of Dreams Program, Kinnaird is the first school in Castlegar to participate, but not the first in the West Kootenay, according to vice-principal Patrick Kinghorn.

“I saw them at other schools,” Kinghorn said, naming Nelson elementary schools as an example.

He partnered with community schools co-ordinator Bev George who secured funding for Kinnaird and the Twin Rivers 360 program.

“It’s a watershed awareness program,” Monica Nissen of the Nelson Stream of Dreams Murals Society said. “Every kid has heard the story on how the first Stream of Dreams began.”

The program started in Burnaby in 2000 and has since expanded to include schools across the province.

Each student at Kinnaird learned where their water comes from, what not to put down the drain, how storm drains work and what changes in behaviour we can all make to protect water and fish habitat.

Nissen said 70,000 people across B.C. have painted fish as part of the program.

Once funding was secured, students in Stanley Humphries Secondary School’s Carpentry & Joinery 12 class cut out all the fish out of wood to be painted.

Kinghorn said every student in the school painted one, as well as some teachers and parents.

Parents and teachers helped install the fish on the school’s fence on Wednesday last week.

“It’s really nice to do this as a community art piece,” Nissen said. “We would like to encourage everybody to think about what goes down the drain.”