Living and sharing Lasallian Values at St Helens

Students and staff at De La Salle School St Helens continue to live and share the 5 Core Principles with their support initiatives that have been hugely beneficial to the local community – Teardrops and HOPE – while the Chaplaincy Team continue their efforts to make a difference to the world.

Day Trip to Teardrops

Before Christmas we were able to reconnect with Teardrops (a local charity supporting those on the peripheries). A reconnect that saw some of our Year 7 and Year 8 students take a trip to Century House to support Teardrops with their packing and wrapping of emergency food parcels for families across St Helens.

After a monumental climb to the 7th floor of the building, our students were ready for a day filled with fruitful conversations, a workshop focusing on social inequalities and preparing the parcels.

The day was split into two parts. The first part of the day saw the students packing food into boxes, and with over 1000 food parcels to pack the Teardrops team had set up a competition to see what student could pack a box the quickest. This was done with care and precision, and we were blown away by the maturity in which both year 7 and 8 students had when considering who these parcels were going to be making their way to.

The second part of the day was set aside for wrapping gift items for children across the borough. Our students were struck by what they were doing and I think it was the wrapping of presents that made things click for them. The conversations around the table were heavily centred around how our students felt that they could sometimes take what they have for granted. But feelings of guilt were quickly turned around by a student in year 8 who began to encourage a conversation about how grateful they felt. Grateful for their parents and family members who were able to treat them, grateful for the things that they have, but also grateful that they were able to experience the day with the Teardrops team to open their eyes a little wider to what is going on for some people in our community.

We support Teardrops as much as we can as a school community and are proud to help spread the good news of their organisation. Teardrops was nominated last year for an award during the Steve Morgan Foundation 20th Anniversary Awards.

HOPE – Help Other People Eat

Last half term we launched our ‘Help Other People Eat’ campaign and as I am writing this article I find myself struggling for the words to explain the journey we’ve been on over the last couple of months.

At the start of our campaign I was urging members of our school community to support those around us in a bid to donate some food items to the Teardrops Hub. Initially I said that if each of us brought in one item that would be over 1500 items…a huge donation to a good cause. I sit here today noting that we have donated over £3000 worth of food to Teardrops and with a school hall still full of donated items, we have been able to reach out to some other organisations within the community who need support at this difficult time of the year.

I cannot say a big enough ‘THANK YOU’ to all parents, carers, staff members and students for your efforts…because of your generosity, we have not only been able to help other people eat. We have clothed people, provided nappies, wipes and sanitary products to young mothers and babies in need, given toiletries and warm clothes to homeless teenagers in temporary accommodation and of course supported members of our own De La Salle community.

We are all members of the same family, and each and every contribution has been as crucial as the next but I feel that one donation must be given a special mention. One of our Year 7 students, Beatrice, heard of our campaign and had a conversation with her dad, asking him to support our work. To my surprise I left school one Friday with an email outlining that Beatrice’s dad oversees the work of Jack’s UK and was going to make a donation to our school…I was blown away. The following week, we received not one, but two full delivery vans from Jack’s loaded with over £2000 worth of food items and toiletries.

With this donation on the door step we had no choice but to spill our donations into the Main Hall as our Chapel was completely full. Along with all of you gift items, clothing, coats, toiletries and food, I have never seen quite so many donations in one space…we are truly blessed to have a community full of willing and generous people. Your acts of giving this year have highlighted the importance of our Lasallian Core Values that underpin all that we do as a community, and have given a great hope that there are so many people in the community who want to do good for the benefit of those less fortunate.

Charities supported this year for Christmas 2021 are as follows:

Teardrops; supporting families in the community, HOPE Centre; supporting those removed from society, Sherdley House; housing for homeless 16-18-year olds, Selina Cooper House, supporting mothers and their young children and SHAP; supporting the refugee crisis. We have also supported those within our school and wider community.

Chaplaincy Team

Our Year 7 Chaplaincy Team is made up of students who are keen to make a difference in the world. Under normal circumstances, this team would be responsible for supporting Community Mass and welcoming parishioners into school each week. Whilst we are under heightened Covid restrictions, our team have been giving their time to do some work on our Fundamental British Values.

So far we have had workshops centred around democracy and rule of law. These workshops are designed to help our team understand a little bit more about how our country is governed and how rules are implemented. We try to get our young people to think about the wider community during their discussions and recently we asked each of them to create their own manifestos.

Some of the new rules and laws that our students wanted to create included; free amusement park tickets for children and young people from low income families. This was to ensure that everybody had access to their right to play. Our students also wanted to ensure that people who need to attend numerous medical appointments due to a disability should have access to free travel to and from appointments.

We aim to deliver each of our workshops in a fun and engaging way to help get the message across to our students. One of our team members Olivia explained that “the workshops are very entertaining and teach us about important life lessons” she also described Chaplaincy here at De La Salle as “a space to help others and share ideas” so I think it is safe to say that she understands the role of Chaplaincy within our school community.