SASKATOON -- Each year new teachers in Saskatoon are recognized and celebrated just before the February break.

This year, the Saskatoon Teachers’ Association aimed to not only celebrate new teachers, but also to promote inclusion and tolerance among the new recruits.

One of Saskatoon’s new teachers, David Rybinski, began teaching Grade 8 in September. In that short time, he’s learned to identify teachable moments and the recent racist verbal assault at Mai’s Kitchen is just that.

“In former days, we would teach students how to respond to math tests, social studies tests, but now we’re teaching kids to respond and prepare them to function in a very diverse country,” Rybinski told CTV News.

Normally new teachers like Rybinski would be honoured by the association at this time of year in a recognition event, but COVID-19 has put a damper on that. The alternative plan this year, continued with the support for Mai’s Kitchen and anti-racism teaching.

“It’s not in courtrooms where we will defeat hate, but in classrooms,” said John McGettigan, president of the Saskatoon Teachers’ Association.

The association decided to give the approximately 130 new teachers a gift certificate to Mai’s Kitchen. McGettigan said it’s the perfect way to combine support of the local Vietnamese restaurant with important work teachers do to shape young minds about acceptance.

That work becomes more crucial each year in Saskatoon with student demographics constantly changing.

“Fifty per cent of the new students in our schools are not Canadian or are new Canadians so when Saskatoon started to become a cosmopolitan place with the boom about a decade ago, our teachers knew that many of those students were coming from places where they were escaping from hate and I think our schools should be a place in which kids not only escape hate, but build a society full of love,” he said.

The manager of Mai’s Kitchen, Quong Pham said his staff have been overwhelmed with the support they’ve received since the racially-charged incident with a customer, and are thankful, but also realize the issue of racism is bigger than just one incident or one restaurant and he encourages people to support local businesses of all cultures where possible.