Compassionate / Making a difference

MAKING a difference

Compassion was the driver for Grade 5 students who held a Makers’ Market at the Junior Campus earlier this year. Students dreamed up, planned, marketed and produced a community event under the guidance of teacher Helen Wilson. The market featured over 20 stalls selling products hand-made or grown from the students’ homes, gardens and farms.

Over $4500 was raised with all proceeds donated to research associated with cerebral palsy – the focus of this year’s Grade 12 Walkathon.

Helen says the students had shared stories about how many lemons, plums, apples, potatoes and other produce they had at home, which prompted the idea of a Makers’ Market.

“I have a fabulous group of enterprising students who wanted to take action to show compassion and help others,” says Helen.

“Our students have fully embraced the practical learning associated with running their first big event.

“We’ve had presentations on business planning, marketing, event management, communication, media, money handling, visual merchandising and much more, ensuring our children are equipped with the right skills to successfully organise and orchestrate a market.

“Alumna and parent, Sarah Hirst, worked closely with our students to create a promotional video and also ran a workshop on how to present at a media interview."

Students showcased specialty products they had made including: Dougal Bennett and his hand-crafted candle holders from silver birch tree branches from his family’s historic farm; Olivia Creese who invited the class to her farm to pull and bag potatoes to sell at the market; Lachie Hirst who hand-picked organic blackberries from his family’s vineyard to make blackberry smoothies; Gabrielle McDonald who created hand-crafted friendship bracelets in a wide-range of colours; Edward Robertson who made unique bike ramps out of wood; Stella Freeman and Otto Ford who baked speciality cupcakes; and Olivia Heazlewood who created home-made bath bombs. Many stalls completely sold out. Congratulations to everyone involved on a fantastic result!