Min

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TERM 12015

Mini Vinnies Jump Up & Down 4 Kids!

Would you like your school to be featured in our next Mini Vinnies Newsletter?

Email Erin (Youth Officer)

erinr@sydneyvinnies.org

JumpedUp&Down4Kids.  https://twitter.com/

jumping4kids

THINK ACT DO

Mini Vinnies at St Brendan's, Annandale spent one of their meetings this term learning about children of asylum seekers being kept in detention. They did not think this was ok as these children have done nothing wrong and they noted that there were more children in detention than attend St Brendan's.

Mini Vinnies split into small teams to go to each classroom and explain this issue to the other children. They also wrote in the school newsletter to make parents aware and then the whole school, including some parents.

Welcome!What an amazing start to the year! 2015 has started out as a very busy year and everyone across Sydney has been putting in an amazing effort to raise awareness of Social Justice. The number of school communities engaging with Vinnies and taking part in Social Justice Initiatives has grown and we are truly grateful for all the support we have received! It is absolutely inspiring to see how much our Vinnies school community has grown and changed over the last 12 months.I hope you all had a blessed and relaxed Christmas and Easter period and I cannot wait to see what we achieve together this year.Erin and the Sydney Youth Team

KINDNESS

BEGINS WITH

ME!

Easter Card Making Fun

This term, St Joachim’s Catholic Primary School, Lidcombe, Mini Vinnies Group and other students at St Joachim’s created over 150 Easter cards, complete with an Easter egg, for the homeless.

Students across all classes, made Easter cards over 3 lunchtime sessions. We also had help from our after school care students, who took the time to make and decorate the Easter card envelopes. It was great to see everyone’s enthusiasm to make each card really special to hopefully make our homeless friends feel cared for. It was also wonderful to see the Mini Vinnies members helping younger children make their cards.

Through the card making, everyone was collaborating together - doing that meant we performed multiple acts of kindness not only outdoors but indoors too! Mini Vinnies members along with the whole school will endeavor to carry out kind acts throughout the year.

We are very happy of what we have achieved over this past term. An exciting Term 2 is being planned where we can continue to show kindness

(Chloe and Ariel - St Joachim’s Mini Vinnies Secretaries, Aisha - Mini Vinnies Vice President)

St Joachim’s, Lidcombe Mini Vinnies

Commissioning Ceremony

Our 2015 kicked off with a great start as the Mini Vinnies group at St. Joachim’s Catholic Primary School, Lidcombe, along with the whole school, held a SPaR session (stop, pray and reflect) and Mini Vinnies Commissioning Ceremony. Our theme was ‘kindness’. Mini Vinnies members acted out the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector, who Jesus showed kindness to, showed a clip of St Joachim’s children carrying out acts of kindness and lead the school in prayer. We were very fortunate to have Ms Erin Rhoades (SVDP Youth Worker) and Mr Barrett (local SVDP President) join us to commission the 2015 Mini Vinnies members at our SPaR session. The Mini Vinnies members all said the Mini Vinnies pledge and prayer, which are essentially all about being kind people. Our SPaR session finished off in song by us all joining in to sing “Try A Little Kindness”.We look forward to an exciting 2015 where we can put kindness into practice!

Dayoung and Deborah (Mini Vinnies Presidents)

Thank you to all the schools who donated to our homeless services over Easter!

EASTER TIME!

St Martha’s Primary School

St Joachim’s Primary School

St Vincent’s Primary School

St Joseph's Primary School

Our Lady of Fatima Primary School

St Aloysius Primary School

Our Lady Queen of Peace

Primary School

St Christopher’s Primary School

St Michael’s Primary School

Holy Cross Primary School

St Ambrose Primary School

In Term 1 Erin went to visit the Mini Vinnies at St Aloysius Primary School, Cronulla. The students sold their own toys and books to raise money for Vinnies and Caritas. The money donated was used to buy Easter eggs for our Brekky Van and Night Patrol clients.

Thank you St Aloysius!

ST ALOYSIUS PRIMARY SCHOOL

A MINI VINNIES IDEA BOX

WE LOVE IT!

Social Justice Dates

May JuneSocial Justice Dates

1Friday 1 May:Vinnies Winter Appeal Launch

15Friday 15 – Thursday 21 May: National Families Week

14Sunday 14 – Saturday 20 June: National Refugee Week

Social Justice Dates

11Monday 11 – Sunday 17 May: National Volunteer Week

27Wednesday 27 May – Wednesday 3 June: National Reconciliation Week

OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY

PRIMARY SCHOOL

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At the beginning of the year, Our Lady of the Rosary, Fairfield commissioned the Mini Vinnies leaders of our school community at our Opening School Mass. The leaders received a beautiful badge to signify their role and pledged in front of the whole school community to make a difference in the world by caring for and respecting themselves and others, strengthening their friendship with Jesus and caring for and appreciating God’s creation. To date, the Mini Vinnies Committee has been working tirelessly to instill Catholic values and teachings in our school community.

Each month at OLR the Mini Vinnies Committee introduces a different Catholic Social Teaching to focus on in our day-to-day lives at school. By focusing on a variety of Social Teachings each month, we aim to create a sense of belonging, respect and appreciation for all. During the month of March, OLR focused on our first principle of Catholic Social Teaching – The Preferential Option for the Poor. Lots of people in our world go without. They don’t

have enough food, water and medicine and in some cases children don’t even attend school. God made our world and God wants all of us to share everything equally. Caring for the poor is everyone’s responsibility. Preferential care should be shown to poor and vulnerable people, whose needs and rites are given special attention in God’s eyes.

To show that we care for the vulnerable people in our community, on Friday 27th March, 2015 OLR organised a Rice Day fundraiser. Parents from the school community volunteered their time to make vegetable fried rice to sell to the children and staff to raise money to donate to Project Compassion and St. Vincent de Paul Society. As a school, we raised a generous amount of money and are extremely honoured to be working together to care for and help others in need.

Thank you,Our Lady of the Rosary Mini Vinnies