Service and Outreach

Jayla Kiratlioglu, Service and Outreach Committee

The Service and Outreach Committee is a committee in which we as a school come together to help the wider community. Depending on what out goals are for the term and even year, we work with certain programs to achieve what we want to accomplish and encourage throughout the School. 

Organisations that we work with consistently every year are Big Group Hug and 300 Blankets, which are both non-for-profit organisations. Big Group Hug works with local communities to address current material needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families. 300 Blankets is another program that assists people of the public and are dedicated to supporting people who are experiencing or are at risk of homelessness in Victoria.

 We as a committee not only work with these organisations but we also work within the School to organise casual clothes days to raise money for fundraisers of our choice, having a sausage sizzle and gold coin donation to get the whole school involved! 

As a committee we love hearing each other’s opinions on what we can do to help make the School and the wider community a better place! By collaborating with each other with the help of teachers we can achieve big things and get heaps of students involved in the programs that we run like Big Group Hug, 300 Blankets, World to Dinner and more! We meet every second Monday lunchtime and organise our ideas with our prefect leaders Victoria Sze and Edward Redlich. 

I have really enjoyed being a part of the Service and Outreach Committee for the last five years! Not only have I been able to connect with people in all different year levels throughout the School, but I have also been able to share my ideas on what I think we could do to help make our community better! I have loved being able to organise casual clothes days and fundraisers, participate in Big Group Hug and work on other projects within the School like compost bins, and even being a mentor in Round Square meetings. 

Some goals that I would like to achieve for the Service and Outreach committee is implementing a veggie patch in the School that is accessible to both students and staff. I feel as though it would be really good to use our wellbeing periods as a time were students can learn about the importance of organic agriculture and how to implement their own veggie patch in their home. If possible, by doing this we can work with the Cooking with a Cause and Serve it Up IDEALS programs or even make up a separate IDEALS program just for it! Another goal is to get more people involved in Service and Outreach Committee as a whole and having more people participate and become aware of the goodness that comes out of participating in volunteering. The Service and Outreach Committee as a team have so many ideas on what we want to achieve these are only just a few that I think could really go somewhere!