Tasks associated with food and food preparation, in fact, constituted one category of work that many students did not mind. The attractions of the kitchen consisted principally of the opportunity for contact between the sexes and access to food. Girls at the Kamloops school found that their bloomers, which ordinarily they detested, came in handy when they were working in the kitchen. From the provision room they would steal prunes, apricots, apples, raisins, and nuts that were reserved for the staff dining room. Other preferred haunts for students who had to work inside the school were the bakery and the staff dining room. Staff and students came together frequently in the private dining room that was reserved for the staff. Service here evoked mixed emotions among the student servers. On the one hand they enjoyed the chance to pilfer food that was much finer than anything they normally encountered. On the other, proximity to choice morsels that the student body at large was denied underlined feelings of deprivation, racial discrimination, and ill-usage for many students.

       Student complaints about the amount of cleaning work they did were common, showing perhaps that adults in the school took too much to heart the dictum that cleanliness was next to godliness. Former pupils of St Philip's school recalled particularly onerous cleaning regimes at their institution. While the girls cleaned inside, sometimes tackling the crannies in the stairway with old toothbrushes, the boys had to follow a truck around the yard picking up litter. They were required to do this whether there was any litter or not. Sunday was a respite from work and classes, though not from religious services.