Homeless Project

2020 brought many challenges to Ignatius Park College. And with it came changes to the Faith in Action (FIA) program. At the start of the year we were able to run our regular programs such as the Holy Spirit reading club, Aitkenvale breakfast club, Brooklea visits, and Toast room volunteers. However, with social distancing and restrictions on visitors, we had to re-imagine the FIA program. During lock-down, the Faith in Action program moved onto Stile through EIR (Edmund Ignatius Rice at Home - “This is not what we teach at school, this is what we breathe.”). Woke Wednesday’s served as a reminder on how our actions can impact the other. It covered topics such as composting, bird watching and identifying, star gazing and astronomy, sustainably podcasts, growing food at home from scraps, and reconciliation. After lock-down, our focus for FIA turned inward as we recognised sustainability at IPC as a way for us to still engage in our responsibility to continue to make the world a better place. No longer were we able to visit places outside the school, so we continued to improve what we did at IPC. This saw the re-emergence of the Social Justice league (a student driven justice initiative) which came up with the idea of an IPC herb and vegetable garden. And the reshaping of the toast room so that it is predominately run by the students, with each house captain given a week to be in charge of operations. We also ramped up our Container for Change collections with the specially made ‘basketball’ container bin being utilized, as well as volunteers collecting containers during their lunch breaks. Through Containers for Change we have stopped thousands of bottles, cans, milk cartons, and poppers from heading to landfill while also raising funds for various charities, including putting money back into IPC through sustainability initiatives.

We also had a very successful campaign to raise awareness around homelessness in Term 3 which saw the Year 12 students volunteer their time at the Townsville Drop in Centre, Year 10 students experience some of the hardship of homelessness through a homeless sleep out and our successful charity drive which raised over $1,500 as well as many goods for the Townsville Drop in Centre. While 2020 has been a challenging year, the men of IPC have risen to the challenge and continued to be men of integrity, pride, and commitment. Patrick McMahon | Identity and Mission Coordinator - Faith in Service

Faith in Action FRONT ROW: Oliver Catt, Bibin Martin, Joshua Symons, Rami Peltonen, Ethan Catt, Jordan Moffat, Max NichollsWard, Atticus D'Mello, Emil Jomon, Ryan McCarthy, Kai Burchell, Joshua Morton SECOND ROW: Mr J. Jackson, Mrs J. Sherwood, Mr P. McMahon, Nicholas Harders, Jack Fredericks, Edwin Jomon, Connor Kenyon, Mebin Martin, Adam Parker, Mr M. Holmes, Miss M. Taylor THIRD ROW: Lincoln Turner, Daniel Gregory, Liam Sutton, Flynn Scott, Zak Merida-Johnston, Domenick Osborne, Kaleb Lewis, Stuart Carter, Ryan Sutton, Lachlan Webb FOURTH ROW: Luke Saldana Lopez, Rishabh Bawa, Ethan Moody Humphrey, Matthew Blanchard, Dante Calliste, Brocklan Bryant, Hunter Paull, Kyle Robinson, James Rowan