Saskatoon's public schools will be done supporting Operation Christmas Child after this holiday season.
The school division issued a statement Friday, noting the charity behind the campaign — which sends shoeboxes filled with gifts to children in need — “does not fully align with our school division’s values and we will not be supporting the charitable campaign in the future.”
The statement did not clarify what specific policies of the charity, Samaritan’s Purse, the Saskatoon Public Schools division finds troubling, but the notice follows a similar move from the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District.
The Newfoundland and Labrador district’s board passed a motion last month directing schools to stop participating in the campaign because of Samaritan’s Purse’s statement of faith.
“These statements caused concern for members of our LGBTQ community which our district has made a significant effort to support within our schools,” the district stated in an email to CTV News.
Samaritan’s Purse expects employees, year-round volunteers and ministry partners to sign a statement of faith that indicates the charity does not support gay marriage.
“God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason, we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female,” a portion of the faith statement reads.
The faith statement was refined last year to include the charity’s views on marriage, according to an email from the charity. Another amendment stated: “We believe that human life is sacred from conception to its natural end.”
“We included these specifics in our Statement of Faith NOT because our views on these issues have changed, but simply because the world’s views has changed to the point where we felt the need to remind our volunteers that our organization accepts the Bible as the inspired and infallible word of God,” the email from Samaritan’s Purse stated.
People donating shoeboxes are not required to sign the statement, according to the charity.
Only one Saskatoon public school’s kindergarten classes participated in the campaign this year, according to the school division.
“It was a project they worked on with their families. Attention was not placed on Samaritan’s Purse and its learning resources were not used in the classrooms,” the division’s statement read.
--- Cory Coleman contributed to this report
