Caring students show compassion

By Wendy Shaw

Generous students from St Finn Barr’s Catholic Primary School at Invermay are helping vulnerable people doing it tough.

They held a successful hygiene drive over five weeks in term two to support homeless people who use a new showering service at Kings Meadows.

The school’s religious education co-ordinator, Wendy Rheinberger, said the drive came about after St Vincent de Paul’s community and youth program coordinator, Rod Spinks, highlighted the need for shower gels, deodorants, soap, tissues, toothbrushes and toothpaste following the opening of the showering facility earlier this year.

The St Vincent de Paul Society is one of the organisations that runs the facility at the former YMCA site in Blaydon St.

“The values espoused in such initiative align with that of Nano Nagle and [the school’s founders] the Presentation Sister in that our deeds speak louder than our words,” Mrs Rheinberger said. “We are driven by action to support the vulnerable in our society.”

Mrs Rheinberger explained that students from the school’s Nagle Club helped to organise the hygiene drive, which underpinned the importance of being part of a kind and caring community.

“I am very proud of the Nagle Club for their commitment to this initiative” Mrs Rheinberger said. 

“These students are a group from our Year 3 and 4 classes who gave up some of their lunch time and regularly visited the classrooms to check how donations were going. 

“In the coming months we will be looking ahead to Catholic Mission opportunities to raise awareness and funds for those less fortunate.”