Catholic Schools' Day

At St Joseph’s Ashburton the focus for this year is increasing children’s awareness of Social Justice. Children throughout the school are developing their understanding of Social Justice and relating this to our vision of “Being the Hands and Voice of Jesus.” They are increasing their knowledge of the work of Catholic Social Justice organisations such as The Saint Vincent de Paul Society and Caritas. We are also working towards increasing the number of senior children who are involved with service within our Parish and our community. Therefore this year we decided to celebrate Catholic School’s Day with a service project which involved all children in meeting the needs of people from throughout our community. The community was able to see what Catholic schools do and the children were able to see the needs of our community. A number of activities were set up for children to participate in, following our school Mass.
The Day included:
 • Mass for the whole school at 9.30 with Our Lady of Snows School •
11am Service Activities: Meals on Wheels 14 children Park Street Daycare 20 children Forest and Bird Society 21 children Salvation Army Food Bank 10 children College Learning Support Unit 6 children Rosebank Resthome 19 children Cameron Court Choir 41 children.
 The Junior Syndicate worked on each child giving a clothing and/or food donation to the St Vincent de Paul Society on Catholic Schools’ Day. This followed on from their unit of work on Local Heroes last term where the children listened to a range of speakers talk about their work in the community helping others. Giving to others with our time, and our possessions is one of the things we can easily do. Children were asked to donate some of their used clothing that they have recently grown out of, and cans of food to St Vincent De Paul. Children bagged the clothing and walked to deliver the clothing and cans to the St Vincent De Paul shop. The day was highly successful and children got a lot out of it, as can be read in their comments:
After I’d sung to the elderly and I had a chat to a really nice lady at Cameron Courts, I felt really happy about sharing the songs and finding out how some of the elderly used to sing and perform. I felt really good as all the elderly were happy too.
For Catholic Schools’ Day I did Meals on Wheels. I felt as though it was great to see how delighted the elderly were to receive a warm meal.
 After I had visited the Plantation I felt good that we were saving plants for future generations.
 After I went to Cameron Courts I felt really happy. Seeing the elderly smile when we were singing made me feel really good inside.
 After helping with the Meals on Wheels I felt very happy because I was helping out in the community. I really enjoyed it because all the people I visited said it was nice to see some new people doing Meals on Wheels and younger faces in the community.
After delivering Meals on Wheels to the elderly I felt happy that I had helped them and some even said that it made their day. But it made me feel sad because we were probably the only people who some would see all day.
At first I thought we were going to sell the meals, but then we were going to deliver the meals to the old people and I felt so excited because it is good helping people. What I learned in Meals on Wheels is it was feeling so proud and caring to other people especially the old people. This activity is so great and I just realised that when we grow up too like the old people I know we’re going to need a person taking care of us, so this activity is so important. I really enjoyed it.