St Vincent De Paul Winter Appeal
Year 10 Christian Service-Learning Project
Terms One and Two

Rationale of the Project:

The purpose of providing Year 10 students with a project like the SVDP Winter Appeal is to give the students an experience of outreach and immersion. St Vincent de Paul Society provides a range of services in which students can witness how Christians respond in love to the wider community. It is hoped that students in experiencing this program may choose to emulate the vision of Christ and offer their time in service to those who are suffering in the community. “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Through an immersion experience, the students will have the chance to view the range of service SVDP offers and choose to engage in the Winter Appeal. This project offers students the opportunity to be affected at a heart level and raise their awareness of the plight of those who are homeless and poor. It will also provide opportunities for them to spread this awareness throughout the college community and in particular their peer group through discussion, reflection and prepared talks.

It is hoped that through planned activities, blankets and clothing will be collected for the poor and the underprivileged by the students using the local College community and perhaps the wider community as a resource.

Students will experience making a difference and will see that love has the capacity to transform people’s lives, sometimes in the simplest of ways. It is hoped that this experience builds on the opportunities offered through Christian Service Projects in Year 9.

Aims

• To raise student’s awareness of what it is like to live in poverty.
• To provide insight and first hand experience of the issues which confront the poor and the disadvantaged.
• To increase their level of respect for people who suffer, who are disadvantaged and who are disenfranchised within the community.
• To give students an opportunity to support people in need in a practical and simple way.
• To experience the transformation which occurs in one’s own being when one reaches out in love to another, especially a stranger.
• To provide students the opportunity to be leaders by establishing a project which they will engage their peers and influence them through witness and action.
• To provide students with experiences which provide “fodder” for reflection which are outside their normal day to day.
• Through reflection to move the students towards compassion and understanding of the suffering and the poor.
• To help students gain a greater understanding of the call of every Christian and to experience the power of Christ in their lives when they align to goodness and love.
• To reflect on the Gospel message through Liturgy and provide opportunities where students can actively live the gospel message.
• To help students gain an understanding of the nature of the St Vincent De Paul Society, the work it does, it’s founder and the vision it is centred upon.