Wonderful work is continuing at St Helens
The wonderful work encouraged at De La Salle School St Helens is continuing through a number of projects that see students and staff live the Lasallian core values.
Let’s Get Moving for Cancer Research
As Lasallians, we’re encouraged to do what we can to help others by meeting the needs of the community. Three of our Year 7 students certainly answered that call when they were moved to action after seeing the plight of those suffering with Cancer. Joseph, Charlie and Adam wanted to do something to raise awareness of Cancer after hearing the Joseph’s nan was diagnosed with the illness for the second time.
The boys were confident that our school community would support them after learning more about our Core Values and community spirit during their “Touching Hearts Retreat” in September.
Their plan was to get everybody outside to walk and talk in a bid to raise awareness and share any experiences that they might have had within their families. Over 240 students joined them over the course of half-term as they walked a mile before school started each day. These walks took place in all weathers with Form Tutors doing their bit to motivate and encourage the students across the year group.
After walking from October to December the boys were preparing for a “big finish” to the walk. The three were determined to hop on a treadmill and walk or run for 56 minutes without stopping. These 56 minutes were particularly special as each one was walked in celebration of a year of the life of Joseph’s Nana Max. The running event was a small, cherished moment for the boys. With no big crowds or audience, they supported each other every step of the way with Nana Max there singing and cheering away!
This event was all about talking and walking to raise awareness of the impact of Cancer, it was never about money. Now that the event is over, and we’ve seen the efforts of so many staff and students, it would be lovely if we were able to collect some funds for Cancer research. There is a link below if you feel you’re able to support!
We are so proud of all the members of our community that took part, but particularly Joseph, Charlie and Adam who were the driving forces behind the whole thing. We thank them for sharing their passion and concern for others, and their willingness to bring our community together for such a special cause so close to their hearts.
Our prayers are with Joseph’s Nana Max, and we thank her for her support.
https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/sams-giving-page-34631
Founder’s Food: Feeding families like our Founder!
Here in St Helens we have a wonderful SVP conference that support the ideas and work of young people all over the borough. This has inspired our own SVP Youth in De La Salle. Our group of Year 7, 8 and 9 students work super hard to raise the profile of our Core Values, having the promotion of respect, faith and social justice at the heart of everything that they do.
One of their biggest projects to date has got to be Founder’s Food. This is their response of the needs of the community. Some of our Year 8 students in the canteen one day noticed a child who did not have enough money on their account for the food they had chosen, they declined the offer of support from our catering staff and left the canteen embarrassed about the situation. The Year 8 students had a moment of realisation that so many other people might be facing the very real issue of the cost of living crisis but may not have the government support of free school meals, and whilst they were well fed and ready for their last lesson of the day, they now knew that at least one of their peers would be hungry, and feeling down going into their learning time after lunch.
During their next SVP Youth meeting, they set about asking the team to support the launch of our own food pantry here in school that could be used as a resource for families in need of the very basics. They did their research, found a suitable place in school to set up and asked relevant people to support in promotion, building shelving, and supplying carrier bags and crates. Then came the small task of obtaining the food. The team then found an organisation to partner with called MCKS who now delivery food and toiletries to school every two weeks. These items are then distributed amongst our families who need it most.
Something that the team have noticed and celebrate is that sometimes the families who come to us for support only do so for a short time, and when they feel able to, they then offer support to others by donating food back to us. Founder’s Food has been an opportunity for our SVP Youth students to see the fruits of giving your time, energy and resources to others as they have seen the ripple effect caused by doing good and giving people the platform to give back too!
Peer-to-Ear
DLS SVP Youth are a very busy group, and one of their big aims is to share The Good News with others (something that they were inspired by during their time at Lasallian Camp last year). To do this in a meaningful way they have produced their own weekly podcast called Peer-to-Ear.
This podcast now airs during our Extended Worship time in school so every form class from Year 7 – 11 has a dedicated slot to listen to the episode. Their aim was to have a show that explored big topics and questions and have discussions rooted in our Christian faith as well as sharing Good News from the community and empowering students from across the school to have their voices heard.
We’ve had a number of episodes with some of the most listened to being, Lucy’s World Record Attempt; as one of our members attempted to sit on every seat in Goodison for the Oliver King Foundation, We Can Be An Ally; exploring pronouns and practical ways that we can celebrate each person as being made in God’s image and likeness by being active allies, and Fresher’s Fayre; students and staff were interviewed during the event to celebrate all of the extra-curricular clubs on offer here in school.
Over the coming weeks we’re looking forward to interviewing children’s author Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Anna from Mary’s Meals. We have interviewed our wonderful team from St Cassian’s and a number of the Lasallian Brothers in our locality and absolutely loved having our Lasallian family on our show to share in conversation. So, this is our plea from SVP Youth…
We would love to have different people from across the District join us for an episode to share some Good News and talk about what it means to them to be part of this huge, important family! Please email Sam Cantillon, our Chaplain to find out more about being on the show, no matter where you are in the world! We’ll look forward to hearing from you!