Fulfillment & Action in Faith and Mission

25 November 2022, 2:43PM

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“Faith in ACTION is LOVE and LOVE in ACTION is SERVICE” Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  

This year has been a wonderful year of fulfillment and action in Faith and Mission. We have been blessed with the amazing efforts of our Marist Regional College community who have come together on many separate occasions to celebrate masses, liturgies, year level retreats, and many other acts of service. As a Catholic college, we are blessed to live out Jesus’ message and bring the good news to others and be servants to those who are in need. 

FAITH IN ACTION: With many different events being held this year we have had multiple opportunities to action our faith and extend the chances for our staff, students and families to be involved in charitable events.  

Relay For Life: 

Our first event of the year was to organise Relay for Life which is a huge fundraiser and awareness bringer for the Cancer Council Tasmania. We had many fundraising ideas come to fruition in the lead up to this event. This included multiple lunch time fundraisers where we sold goodies of all kinds and even had a popular staff baby guessing stand which raised over 100 dollars. I would like to thank Miss Sophia Teis, Trainee for all her efforts to organise many of the stalls over the four lunchtimes, and the staff and students who donated or helped sell things to raise money for the Relay.  

  • The actual event itself was an amazing experience; MRC had a team of well over 50 students attend the 20 hours of walking non-stop laps. Many thanks to the staff who committed themselves to the day and night and helped make it an enormous success. MRC won the Spirit of Relay award with the biggest team and came 3rd in total funds raised with close to 8,000 dollars raised. Staff and students were banged up, tired and sore but the commitment shown throughout was a credit to all involved. Staff volunteers – Mr Sam Johnstone, Miss Sophia Teis, Ms Maxine Neaton, Mr Garry Gale, Mr John Hamilton, Mr Wayne Gale, Ms Rachael Shires and Ms Frances Sanford.   

St Vincent De Paul 

Winter Appeal and Can Drives: This year brought about a change with our efforts to raise much needed support for Vinnies. We threw down the challenge to all students to compete for house points, as the house with the most items raised for our Winter appeal and Can Drives would be awarded house points for their efforts. Both events were a tremendous success as we filled four wheelie bins of winter goodies like blankets, gloves, jackets, and scarves, as well filling the same amount of wheelie bins during the can drive. The can drive provided local families with enough food and sanitary items for around 6 weeks or more of emergency relief. Thanks again to all our staff and volunteers who helped make these appeals such a success.  

Vinnies Community Sleep out 

Friday 24 June, 38 students and 8 staff gathered in the Marist Quadrangle and Marian Centre to participate in the Vinnies Sleepout, with many different activities run across the night. St Vincent De Paul brought in the Vinnies Van in to feed those who were sleeping out for an authentic experience on how the van works in the community. Over the course of the night, staff and students learned all about the challenges that someone who is homeless may face every day. A special thanks to the volunteers at Vinnies who provided us with soup and sandwiches to keep us going. After listening to the Vinnies representatives and connecting with schools and other organisations across the state via Zoom, we realised how lucky we are to have a home, bed, warm clothes, and food. Homelessness can affect anyone anywhere and we need to be aware that this is not just happening on the mainland, but in our local communities too. Thanks to the students who participated and a special thanks once again to the staff who supported the night.  

Swags for Salvos 

The Swags for Salvos evening event to raise money for the Salvation Army was a remarkable success. Not only was there a great turn out, but the night ran better than expected having a series of line and partner dances, drinks from the bar, a selection of both hot and cold food available, as well as the main event of the night, the raffles. With a large amount of quality prizes on offer, staff and guests were excited to purchase tickets to have a chance at winning hamper packs, gift vouchers, a load of wood, DVD projector, and even a ukulele, but they were also willing to donate towards the cause of swags for homeless people. As the night ended, together we raised an estimated $1800 from raffle tickets, door entry and additional donations from staff members. The event would not have been as successful without the help from all the staff and students who helped on the night, the contribution from everyone who made donations towards this cause, and those who showed up to support the the night. We thank everyone who showed their support and hopefully this event will be bigger and even better next year.   

Declan Cahill, Georgia Askew, Callum Dobbie and Myles Johnstone  

A personal thanks to our wonderful Year 12 students for taking on this fundraiser to help them with their Year 12 Religion task in Inspiring Change. I hope all the students benefitted from the event management that the evening took to prepare. They were wonderful on the night and all the feedback received was incredibly positive.  

I would also like to thank Danny Haines for his tireless work organising many of the items for the raffle, as well as organising many of the guests on the evening. Without this effort we would not have been able to hold the event and the raffle would have been non-existent too. We appreciate your work, Danny, and look forward to seeing some of your dance moves over the years here at the College. I would also like to thank Ms Marisa Licandro, Ms Jen Reeves and our senior VET (Vocational Education and Training) Hospitality students for their effort on the night and leading up to the night. Without your help, we would not have got the evening off the ground and would not have had a chance to raise the funds we were after for the swags. Thanks again, your help is always appreciated. Lastly, thanks to all the staff that supported the evening. It is lovely to see staff get behind these functions and support their colleagues and students who are running events such as these. You do not go unnoticed when you support these events. 

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to remember and thank, Mr Garry Gale. Garry passed away suddenly during the year which had a profound impact on the whole College community. I would like to thank Garry for his significant role in supporting me and anything I was doing at the College. Garry would always support my ideas and was behind me 100%, and for this, I will be forever grateful. There was not one idea that I had or event that I was running where Garry would not support me or offer some words of wisdom. Garry was loved by all and his impact during his time at Marist Regional College was immeasurable. Rest easy my friend, we will continue to live out your legacy in the years to come. (My GUY).  

Mr Sam Johnstone 

Director of Mission & Faith