MacGregor Collegiate is after your hide

Once again, MacGregor Collegiate Institute is reaching out to hunter enthusiasts to help them with their leatherwork program. Each year the school makes the request when deer season is about to open up. 

Penny Wilson is the Human Ecology teacher and is asking for deer hide donations from their local community hunters. 

"We use these deer hides in our leatherwork program that we offer through the textiles programming here at the school," explains Wilson. "Deer season is approaching, it's right on top of us and most people are not using their deer hides. For many of the hunters, the deer hide is not part of the animal that they consistently use, so this is a great way for us to use our immediate resources in a more effective way, or we can actually put it into production and get some beautiful articles of clothing out of it."

She notes they make mukluks, mittens, and moccasins through the program. 

"It's a self-directed learning option we have here at MacGregor Collegiate," continues Wilson. "Manitoba Education has redeveloped our curriculums to include a more culturally-diverse perspective. A lot of technical knowledge goes into the application of making something like this and this is an opportunity for the textiles program to acknowledge the skill acquisition that goes into being able to produce an item like this in a way that gives the kids a high school credit."

Wilson says you can drop off the donated hides directly at MacGregor Collegiate. 

"It needs to be in a bag with the hunter's name and the tag attached to the bag for us to be able to accept it as per our collection permit with Manitoba Conservation," adds Wilson. "We usually accept hides right up to about the first week of December, and then it generally kind of peters off. It's a privilege to be able to participate in a program like this in our community. The materials required to put out a program like this for the kids is prohibitively expensive if the kids had to purchase it all on their own."

She says it's a great way to use their local resources at a dramatically reduced cost, making a program like this that's accessible for kids that otherwise just wouldn't be able to do it.