Environment Group News

This Friday, our Environment Group is supporting Stationery Aid and calling on the school community to Wear Fluoro Like a Highlighter on Friday 1 August 2025 to raise awareness and funds for two urgent issues: the growing gap in education equity and the environmental impact of school supply waste.

Each year, thousands of Queensland students start school without the essential supplies they need to learn confidently and creatively. At the same time, tonnes of barely used school stationery end up in landfill. Stationery Aid’s mission is to change this by collecting, renewing and redistributing quality pre-loved education resources to students in need—creating a circular solution that supports both people and the planet.

So Years 7 – 12 students, make sure to dress in fluoro, high-vis or your brightest colours on Friday, and remember to have your ID cards charged with money. Primary students will have their own fluoro free dress day later in the term.

Stationery Aid’s own research is telling us the number of disadvantaged students that need help getting back to school is over 23,000 annually.  This figure is the bottom 4% whose parents don’t often put their hands up for help and students will have very little or nothing. The real figure of school students experiencing disadvantage in Queensland who need support annually with resources is over 96,000 students (16% that live in poverty).

So far in 2025, Stationery Aid has -

• Supported 1208 students supplying 864 sustainable booklists.
• 185 schools in Queensland received their booklists.
• Diverted 9000kgs of books and stationery away from landfill.
• Specifically at Marist, collected 417kg of stationery which equates to 46 student booklists.

“Fluoro catches attention and that’s exactly what we need right now - to HIGHLIGHT the fact that every child deserves a fair start at school and that we can tackle stationery waste at the same time,” says Alison Schutt, Co-Founder of Stationery Aid.

Every Friday morning from 7:30am in Room 801, students can participate in sorting and cleaning donated stationery items (and earn some MATES points along the way). 

Here are some photos of some past Stationery Aid Friday mornings.

Join the movement, wear your brightest, and help highlight the gap.

For more information, visit: www.stationeryaid.org/fundraising/