Sleepover at DFC a fun experience for students

Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School students held a sleepover Oct. 29-30 at the Thunder Bay-based Northern Nishnawbe Education Council school.
“It was really good – a lot of people had fun,” said Kevin Anderson, a Grade 12 student from Poplar Hill who helped organize the 18-hour event. “We are also planning to have a November sleepover too.”
The students even played a manhunt game late at night, which involved one of the students searching for all the other students, who were hiding somewhere within the school.
“Whoever he catches first will also help him out to catch others,” Anderson said.
Anderson also scared some students who went into the dark music room.
“I was mostly up there all by myself,” Anderson said. “Whoever went up there, I just scared them. They just took off running down the stairs.”
More than 20 students took part in the sleepover, with two students acting as supervisors. Anderson had to stay awake until 4 a.m. to make sure all the students went to sleep because some students were still wandering around the school late at night.
“I could probably use a little more help from other senior students,” Anderson said. “It was just me and my partner supervising everybody.”
The sleepover began with a performance by Quese IMC, a Pawnee-Seminole hip hop artist from Los Angeles, California.
“I started travelling to conferences when I was 15 and I started to speak at around 20,” Quese IMC said. “From there I’ve just been travelling the world performing hip hop, doing youth events and outreach, suicide prevention and alcohol drug-free prevention. 
“I just want to offer up solutions to our Indigenous people here on Turtle Island and at the same time operate out of this modern-day gift, hip hop, and use it as a tool to reach young people because I’m young too.”
Quese IMC was exposed to alcoholism in his family while he was growing up, but with the help of spirituality he followed a different path to find his gift of hip hop music.
“It’s the music that reaches our generation, so I just put those gifts, those opportunities together to make a way, not the way, but a way, because I’m just one spiritual warrior for our people,” Quese IMC said. “There’s many, but I’m just honoured to have learned this at an young age and to continue to do it in the future.”
Quese IMC said he’s seen many changes since he began following his hip hop path.
“All these changes are happening, so as humans here on this earth we are dealt with a dilemma and that’s what road are we going to take,” Quese IMC said. “Are we going to be part of that change or are we going to be a destructive people.”
He said First Nations people have one of the most sacred and powerful gifts given to human beings.
“In having that gift we were told we would be put last and we would be overlooked, but in time we would reach in and bring healing to this Earth,” Quese IMC said. “In being that healing to the Earth, it is a choice that our people have to make, whether we are going to walk that destructive road or walk that constructive road for our people.”
The sleepover also featured a bonfire on the school grounds, a screening of the classic film Nightmare on Elm Street, with pop, juice and chips available for the moviegoers, and a breakfast Saturday morning.
“They enjoyed the night,” Anderson said. “They all had fun. A few even made some new friends, too.”
The sleepover was the sec- ond held this year at DFC. Aside from the upcoming November sleepover, another is planned for later in the semester.
Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School students held a sleepover Oct. 29-30 at the Thunder Bay-based Northern Nishnawbe Education Council school.
“It was really good – a lot of people had fun,” said Kevin Anderson, a Grade 12 student from Poplar Hill who helped organize the 18-hour event. “We are also planning to have a November sleepover too.”
The students even played a manhunt game late at night, which involved one of the students searching for all the other students, who were hiding somewhere within the school.
“Whoever he catches first will also help him out to catch others,” Anderson said.
Anderson also scared some students who went into the dark music room.
“I was mostly up there all by myself,” Anderson said. “Whoever went up there, I just scared them. They just took off running down the stairs.”
More than 20 students took part in the sleepover, with two students acting as supervisors. Anderson had to stay awake until 4 a.m. to make sure all the students went to sleep because some students were still wandering around the school late at night.
“I could probably use a little more help from other senior students,” Anderson said. “It was just me and my partner supervising everybody.”
The sleepover began with a performance by Quese IMC, a Pawnee-Seminole hip hop artist from Los Angeles, California.
“I started travelling to conferences when I was 15 and I started to speak at around 20,” Quese IMC said. “From there I’ve just been travelling the world performing hip hop, doing youth events and outreach, suicide prevention and alcohol drug-free prevention. 
“I just want to offer up solutions to our Indigenous people here on Turtle Island and at the same time operate out of this modern-day gift, hip hop, and use it as a tool to reach young people because I’m young too.”
Quese IMC was exposed to alcoholism in his family while he was growing up, but with the help of spirituality he followed a different path to find his gift of hip hop music.
“It’s the music that reaches our generation, so I just put those gifts, those opportunities together to make a way, not the way, but a way, because I’m just one spiritual warrior for our people,” Quese IMC said. “There’s many, but I’m just honoured to have learned this at an young age and to continue to do it in the future.”
Quese IMC said he’s seen many changes since he began following his hip hop path.
“All these changes are happening, so as humans here on this earth we are dealt with a dilemma and that’s what road are we going to take,” Quese IMC said. “Are we going to be part of that change or are we going to be a destructive people.”
He said First Nations people have one of the most sacred and powerful gifts given to human beings.
“In having that gift we were told we would be put last and we would be overlooked, but in time we would reach in and bring healing to this Earth,” Quese IMC said. “In being that healing to the Earth, it is a choice that our people have to make, whether we are going to walk that destructive road or walk that constructive road for our people.”
The sleepover also featured a bonfire on the school grounds, a screening of the classic film Nightmare on Elm Street, with pop, juice and chips available for the moviegoers, and a breakfast Saturday morning.
“They enjoyed the night,” Anderson said. “They all had fun. A few even made some new friends, too.”
The sleepover was the sec- ond held this year at DFC. Aside from the upcoming November sleepover, another is planned for later in the semester.