A St. Thomas More Collegiate student is not only earning acclaim as a singer, she’s also done her part to help others get through the pandemic while preparing for her own graduation.

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Irving has just released a new single, Your Time, which she wrote at the start of her Grade 12 year.

She told Burnaby Now about her moments of struggle going into Grade 12. “I was kinda losing a little bit of hope,” she said. “This song really helped me get through the pandemic. It’s an anthem that I hope inspires other people.”

Irving also volunteered in the school’s learning assistance department as a teacher’s assistant and peer tutor helping students with disabilities and plans to study music therapy at Capilano University.

Irving’s grad year was memorable for another reason. In November she won the Outstanding Music Single award from Hollywood’s Young Artist Academy for her debut single Remember, released in 2020.

STM grad Elizabeth Irving won the Outstanding Music Single Award from the Young Artist Academy in 2020 for her debut single Remember.

Irving has also been a regular anthem singer for the Vancouver Canucks and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

St. John Brebeuf’s SJB Times launched in 2019 and has continued to publish regularly through the pandemic.

At a time when newspapers are in decline – both in numbers and in quality – it’s great to see there’s still a valuable role for the school newspaper, where many journalists cut their teeth before moving on to careers in journalism.

St. John Brebeuf Secondary launched its inaugural edition of The SJB Times in Fall 2019, just before the pandemic. Since then, more than a dozen students and faculty led by Mrs. Ania Neuls and Mr. Josh Palmarin have kept to their production schedule of putting out four issues a year.

The SJB Times front page (left) and Korean language lessons (above).

The content is both lively and relevant, with everything from opinion pieces on grad stress and COVID anxiety to saints, recipes, fashion, travel, teacher profiles, and Korean lessons (SJB has a significant international student population from Korea.) It also has regular advertisers.

A recent issue cleverly featured reflections from first-year and graduating students: WRITING EXAMS FOR THE FIRST TIME: A GRADE 8 PERSPECTIVE followed by WRITING EXAMS FOR THE LAST TIME: A GRADE 12 PERSPECTIVE.

The school also has a podcast and a literary journal.

If your Catholic school has a student newspaper, please send us a note at news@rcav.org. We’d love to take a look at our future competition!