Hundreds Join Scarborough Walk with Excellence

 By Stephen Weir

 For Scarborough students graduating from Grade 12, the next step in their educational journey begins next week when, once again, the Walk with Excellence takes place on the morning of May 20.

The Scarborough Walk with Excellence is an inspiring annual Grade 12 education event that celebrates academic achievement, perseverance, and community pride among graduating high school students in Scarborough. Organized and launched by Itah Sadu through partnerships involving local schools, educators, community leaders, and supporters of higher education, the walk brings together hundreds of Grade 12 students as they journey to the University of Toronto campus. In past years, students have also walked to York University.

The event is designed to encourage young people, many of them first-generation university-bound students, to see post-secondary education as an achievable goal while highlighting the excellence and diversity of Scarborough’s youth. Parents, teachers, trustees, alumni, and community advocates often join the students, turning the walk into both a celebration and a powerful statement about opportunity, education, and the future of the community.

The morning Walk with Excellence launch will be held at West Hill Collegiate on Morningside Avenue. From there, the students will travel north to Ellesmere Road, then east to Military Trail and onward to the University of Toronto Scarborough campus.

The 300 students expected to take part this year are from schools in the western part of Scarborough. But what about students from Scarborough East? They will have their turn soon. Dust off your walking shoes. The East Walk of Distinction will take place early next month, on June 3.

“We have close to 300 students registered to make the walk this year. We anticipate this number will continue to grow in the years ahead,” said teacher Adrian Roberts, one of the walk’s organizers and a teacher at Agincourt Collegiate Institute.

Itah Sadu, the owner of the A Different Book List bookstore at the Blackhurst Cultural Centre and a renowned author, community leader, and founder of the Walk with Excellence initiative, has long emphasized themes of empowerment, community unity, and the importance of opening doors for others.

“We must open the doors and we must see to it they remain open so that others can pass through,” Sadu said.

After all is said and done, more than 350 students from a dozen Scarborough high schools will have “walked the walk.”

Schools expected to take part include: Agincourt CI; Albert Campbell CI; Birchmount CI; Cedarbrae CI; David and Mary Thomson CI; L’Amoreaux CI

Lester B. Pearson CI; R.H. King Academy; SATEC @ W. A. Porter C.I.; Stephen Leacock CI; West Hill CI, and Woburn CI.

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