Mini Vinnies News
On Thursday 2nd November Holy Family School hosted the 2023 Mini Vinnies Networking Conference. 6 schools from across the Eastern region attended this event, both primary and secondary. Holy Family sent 9 student representatives from our Mini Vinnies Conference to participate in this event. The students were tasked with presenting about a Good Works (social justice action) they had taken part in during the year. Our students presented about the bake sale that they organised and ran in term 2. Overall the students from Holy Family were well-prepared, organised and presented with confidence and clarity. The teachers at Holy Family are exceptionally proud of our Mini Vinnies student representatives - Mikael Looi, Matthew Moore, Will Browne, Sienna Browne, Dhinara De Alwis, Alessandra Ghannoum, Kaitlyn Chua, Nuvee Jayasuriya and Micah De Lima.
The Holy Family student representatives were asked to reflect on the networking conference and what being a part of Mini Vinnies means to them. Below are their reflections.
Mikael, Year 4
During the Mini Vinnies Networking Conference 2023, my fellow representatives and I of Holy Family had a wonderful time. We got plenty of chances to share our ideas and projects that we did to fundraise money for St Vincent de Paul. We also met many new people that had the same fun Mini Vinnies experience as us! The whole experience overall was a great event to me, as I got plenty of ideas of how I could help my community and it left me thinking about what Vinnies would look like in the next 10 years. For me, Mini Vinnies is like my chance to help my community while I'm still a student.
Matthew, Year 4
What I like about Mini Vinnies is that we learn about how to help everyone in the community. Also I had ideas about a backpack week where you get to wear your favorite backpack for a week. You have to bring a gold coin on the day you bring your favorite backpack, any day of backpack week.
Just remember “I WAS ON FIRE!!”
Micah, Year 4
We were there to represent our school at the Mini Vinnies Networking Conference. I like Mini Vinnies because I get to help people in need when I am still young, and in ten years time we get to see what difference I made to the world when I was just in year four. I also like Mini Vinnies because I get to help the sick, homeless and the poor. We get to give them food and money.
Alessandra, Year 4
Yesterday, the second of November, 2023 Nuvee, Matthew, Micah, Mikael, Will, Sienna, Dhinara, Kaitlyn, and I went to the Mini Vinnies Conference. We all did our presentations. We were all so proud of each other because each and everyone of us did so well! (most of the schools thought we were the best). My favourite part was when we had to brainstorm ideas that we could do for homeless people this Christmas. My group thought that we should raise money and do a BBQ and give the money to homeless kids/adults around the city this Christmas.
Nuvee, Year 4
We firstly started by doing an icebreaker activity where we went to other people while doing body percussion. It was so fun! We had such a great time all day and we would love to do it again. My favourite part was when we gave our presentation. Everyone looked at each other, we were all very scared. We went up and presented. It was very exciting!
Kaitlyn, Year 4
On Thursday 2/11/23 Dhinara, Will, Mikael, Sienna, Alessandra, Nuvee, Matthew, Micah and I went to the hall to present and to represent our school by showing the other schools our work we did in Mini Vinnies. At the conference we learnt how we could help Mini Vinnies and the poor and elderly people. When it was our turn to present, we all had butterflies in our tummies. What I personally felt when we presented our presentation was a really good feeling. We all tried our best and we did great. I loved how I got to be a part of this presentation and how we showed our work for the other schools to get inspiration. Mini Vinnies means to me like I am an important person because I’m making people happy again.
Dhinara, Year 4
Our first activity was to meet other schools so we played an Icebreaker game. This was so we could know a bit about people before we did our real activities. We felt a bit scared meeting the other schools. Mini Vinnies means to me helping others out and raising money for St. Vincent de Paul, and doing fun activities like the bake sale. It's fun making new activities like the family movie night and getting new ideas for Mini Vinnies.
Upcoming Mini Vinnies events:
Friday 1st December 2023 - Family Movie Night
Gates open at 4.30pm with carnival games and a sausage sizzle in the quadrangle of the school.
Movie begins at 5pm in the church hall.
Tickets to this event can be purchased at the gate. Tickets will cost:
- $5 for children 12 and under
- $10 for children over 12 and adults
- $20 for a family (2 adults and 2 children, or 1 adult and 3 children)
All money raised from the carnival games, event tickets, sausage sizzle and popcorn will be going to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, who will use the funds to take care of people in need in our immediate community.