St Vincent De Paul

Vinnies girls promoted fund-raising for the Farmers Fund to support Aussie farmers through hardship caused by ongoing drought and difficulties on the land. The girls conducted a ‘sausage sizzle’ and a donation was raised and presented to the Youth Co-ordinator for St Vincent de Paul. Thank you to the whole Cerdon community for their generous support.    

Vinnies girls create personalised Christmas cards for the elderly in Cardinal Gilroy Retirement Village.
Each year the Vinnies girls from Cerdon go across to the Cardinal Gilroy Retirement Village and create the most wonderful, hand made Christmas cards for the elderly. They write the personalised messages and label the envelopes.

This service is so appreciated by the  residents, especially those who cannot obtain their own or who want that “special” card for someone special. The Vinnies girls love this activity and look forward to it at Christmas time.

St Vincent de Paul Fathers’ Day Appeal
On Monday 1st September the Vinnies girls went to the Cardinal Freeman House for Men in Granville to deliver the Fathers’ Day gifts. The staff and the residents of the centre were overwhelmed to see so many gifts and very much appreciated the generosity of the Cerdon community.

Vampire Shield The Vampire Shield is a school-based blood donation competition held each year. Cerdon College has participated in this incredibly rewarding competition for the past two years and in both years the school has finished first in the Sydney region. We also managed to improve our state ranking by one position this year in coming fourth.
Once a term, students sixteen years and over, are transported to the Parramatta centre for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service by mini bus. They have their blood pressure taken and iron levels checked and if all is okay they are able to donate 470 mls of their own blood which saves the lives of up to three people. Last financial year the Cerdon students donated 271 times. This is a remarkable achievement and a true reflection of the wonderful social conscience and practical community involvement that our students exhibit.

Community Action Program Year 10

Our Year 10 students were provided the opportunity to see and evaluate firsthand their Religious Education unit on Social Justice during Community Action Week, which was held from Monday 26 November to Friday 30 November.

Preparations were started at the beginning of the year to find suitable placements for our students where they could interact with the aged or disabled or groups who are marginalised in our society. While administrative tasks progressed in the background, students learnt about Social Justice through class work and practical experiences led by Year 10 Religious   Education teachers.

In the week prior to Community Action, a Social Justice Day was held to reinforce the need for awareness of injustice in the world and to promote a practical understanding of what may be achieved through the desire to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

Some of our Year 10 students found Community Action Week confronting as they have limited experience of the world and attitudes towards those groups needing support. The evaluation process which followed the week’s placement of     students in nursing homes, disability units, migrant support groups and schools reflected a general growth in maturity and awareness as students shared their experiences with one another.

Medecins Sans Frontieres
‘Imagine this, Cerdon has just been bombed and all you can do is run’.
On September 8, ten Year 10 students from the Social Justice Group ventured to an eye-opening exhibition at Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush. We walked into the life of a refugee. It was a walk-through exhibition which gave us insight on the chaos conflict and natural disasters have brought to communities all over the world in places such as Sudan, Nigeria and Russia.

'Knitters Club' Year 10 girls at Cerdon College sought out a practical activity to support those in need for social justice. A ‘Knitters Club' was established at school as well as help from home and students have   begun to knit jumpers for new born babies. This was a challenge in itself since most Year 10 girls were not ‘knitters’! New skills were learnt and persevered with to produce more than 200 jumpers. Girls and family members, mums, grandmas, aunties have knitted for a couple of months to create these colourful and cute jumpers for babies in need.
They will be sent to Peru, Argentina, Chile and the Highlands in New Guinea. Rotary Australia has received and sent nearly 4,000 jumpers at its own expense, so fundraising has begun at Cerdon to donate money to help with the shipment of the jumpers.

Thank you to all enthusiastic knitters, encouragers and donators for the money for this worthy appeal.