Community Service The enthusiasm with which St Joseph’s boys answer the call to step up and help those in need within our local and wider communities never ceases to amaze me. Whether it be covering the paper routes for an elderly lady so she can meet her husband’s medical costs whilst she recovered from a leg injury, tin shaking at intersections for Barwon Health or escorting groups around the Humans in Geelong Expo, I am never short of volunteers. There are always new community service opportunities for the students to get involved with and this year St Joseph’s have come on board with We All Rotate, an organisation founded by Steve and Nat Beatty trying to eradicate the stigma and social injustices surrounding menstruation. In some areas of remote Nepal, communities are still practicing an ancient tradition where menstruating women are forced to live outside in kennel-like huts and they are not permitted to interact with others. They are vulnerable to predators – animal and human – and use old, dirty pieces of clothing or corn husks as sanitary wear, leading to infection and death. We All Rotate provide these women with ‘dignity packs’ containing reusable sanitary wear as a way of initiating conversations around good hygiene practices. Whilst we might not be able to sew, we can certainly cut the fabric that is used to make these sanitary pads – our count for 2017 is 6500 pieces cut!
Our other, more established projects such as the breakfast program, refugee tutoring, refugee holiday program, Bloodbank, Outreach Van and Samaritan House are still going strong and only survive thanks to the support and commitment of both students and staff. Special events, like the Winter Sleep Out and Vinnies Winter Appeal, help students understand the plight of social issues like homelessness and the fundraising efforts of the Year 7 and 8 participants – amounting to just over $3000 – went towards the purchase of supplies for the Outreach Van. All Year 10 students have continued to participate in visits to aged care facilities around the Geelong region with their Religion class; this one hour visit often becomes a highlight for the residents, who always look forward to spending time with “the young ones”. Watching how the boys’ manner and interaction with the residents changes from their first to subsequent visits, I believe it is an invaluable experience for our students also. One of the things I hope our students come to realise from their participation in community service is that they really do have the power to make a difference in their world: locally, nationally and globally. - Zoe Marshall, Service Learning Coordinator GORCC
Vinnies Winter Appeal
Brea k prog fast ram
ric for Cutting fab te We All Rota
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Age d care visit s
Making sleep mats for the homeless
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Making soup for the outreach van
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