A COMMUNITY THAT CARES
A caring scholastic community helps those in need Content provided by St. Francis College | www.stfrancis.com.br
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his past year has definitely been atypical and challenging for the entire world. The pandemic that caught all of us off-guard has changed our lifestyles overnight in all four corners of the world. Sadly, it seems that the underprivileged economies and families always get hit harder by global crises. With this in view, St. Francis College, an International school located in the borough of Pinheiros, São Paulo worked hard to support those in need. In partnership with an NGO called Instituto Devolver, that helps 56 smaller organisations in Brazil, they were able to assist those in need both during the Covid crisis and Holiday season. Instituto Devolver focuses it’s work on children that are either living in institutionalised homes or that come from families of underprivileged backgrounds. During the Covid crises many of these families lost their jobs, and scarcity of food and basic hygiene products became even more extensive. St. Francis College created a campaign that invited it’s staff and parents to donate emergency kits to the NGO. There were many types of kits assembled and distributed, which mainly were a blend of food and basic cleanliness products. Over R$150,000 was donated from the school to this non profit organisation and over 3 thousand kits were distributed over the months.
educate the unprivileged children of the smaller organisations they support. This time around, St. Francis College had their students participate in the fundraising of this honourable donation. Pupils partook in activities such as walkathons and reading-thons, where they were sponsored by family and friends. During a period of three weeks before Christmas, these young, caring and principled scholars were able to raise money for the NGO once again. The donations were converted into presents for children that consisted of a book and an educational toy, which were purchased from the so called “Leiturinha” organisation, also another admirable scholastic institution in Brazil. While world crisis and pandemics strain people and its different societies, it is indeed emotional and admirable to see a school’s staff, families and young student body unite to help and support those in more need. This is the true sense of a community. #Proudtobestfrancis ◼
Towards the end of the year Instituto Devolver developed a campaign called “Natal Solidário”, which again aimed to help and
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British Society São Paulo | Fundação Britanica de Beneficência | Spotlight N° 130
