We’re committed to strengthening our local schools through a variety of initiatives.

Over the past decade, our company has formed three special school partnerships in the Saint John, New Brunswick area.

Saint John the Baptist-King Edward Elementary School

Since 2003, Irving Oil has partnered with Saint John the Baptist-King Edward, located in Saint John’s South End. The program provides support to students and staff, with approximately 90 employees and alumni volunteering on a daily basis in the classroom and at a nearby hot lunch program for the students, called the Chicken Noodle Club. In addition, we provide essential items and services including school supplies, clothing drives, sports uniforms and equipment, computers, playground supplies, and school transportation.

Champlain Heights Elementary School

As the nearest school to our refinery, our company’s partnership with Champlain Heights rose out of the need for further communication about our operations. In 2008, Irving Oil and Champlain Heights proudly formalized the partnership, known as CHEER (Champlain Heights Education Enhancement Relationship). CHEER supports the school’s curriculum by providing tutoring programs, a book club, class trips, computer supplies and a refinery education program where students learn about refining first-hand from our employees and on refinery tours.

Today, Irving Oil provides the school with over 200 volunteer hours per year.  We’ve also pledged to donate a SMART board (an interactive whiteboard that connects to a computer) to every classroom at Champlain Heights by 2011.

Bayview Elementary School

When a fire destroyed Bayview Elementary School in 2005, the students and faculty were forced to move their school grounds to a new location with one key feature missing -– a playground.  When Irving Oil learned that the students were without a playground, our company offered to donate the equipment and more than 20 refinery employees helped to install one at the new school location.  To this day, our employees remain connected with Bayview through donations of school supplies, computers and other essential equipment.