Fundraiser

Dear parents, students and friends of John Monash Science School,

Welcome to the beginning of the school year, we hope you have all had a relaxing and restful holiday. As you are all most likely aware, this season’s bushfires have had a devastating impact on both our unique Australian wildlife and many rural communities throughout Australia, with almost 2000 homes already destroyed and thousands of people evacuated and displaced.

One of the areas most severely affected by these fires was the small town of Mallacoota, located in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. In the past years, students from Mallacoota P-12 College have participated in our regional exchange program, so it hit us close to heart when we began to think about the difficulties the Mallacoota students and school community must be going through in the aftermath of this disaster.

So as the new school captains for 2020, we wanted to kickstart this year with a series of fundraising events from which all proceeds will be going towards assisting Mallacoota P-12 College.

The funds will be going directly to the school to help support the families of students enrolled, as well as replacing the equipment and facilities lost during these devastating fires. We hope this encourages you all to donate as you will know exactly where your money will be going, unlike with other campaigns where you cannot always be sure what your money will be put towards. We intend to have a large variety of fundraising activities to make the biggest impact we can on the lives of these families. Most of our events will be in ‘fundraising fortnight’ from the 24th of February to the 6th of March, these events include a free dress day, a BBQ, a movie night, a morning breakfast, and a many more. So parents, hopefully, you can encourage your students to get involved for a good cause, it really will make a difference in someone’s life.

There will be other events occurring throughout this term as well as in subsequent terms, and as voted on by our student parliament, all of the proceeds from all of the schools fundraising activities will be going directly to providing bushfire relief for the school community at Mallacoota P-12 College.

As part of our fundraising fortnight, we would like to run a silent auction or raffle. To do this, we will need items donated that can be raffled/auctioned. If you or someone you know works for a business from which they can get merchandise or products, it would be greatly appreciated as a donation to our raffle/silent auction. Even if it is something small, every item counts.

Many of you may be wanting to donate money. We kindly ask that you instead give your child money to donate, so it can be included in the house competitions, teacher auctions, BBQs and other activities we have planned and to also encourage other students to donate during the fundraising fortnight.

Along with our monetary donations to Mallacoota, we also thought it would be a great idea to help them out with some academic support. One of our very own biology teachers will be sent to the school to teach Year 12 classes for a couple of days. This will be of great help to them as they do not have a biology teacher at the moment. It will provide them with a really solid foundation for their Year 12 biology studies.

JMSS has run a regional exchange program with students from Mallacoota for several years now and we will do so again this year. However, in response to the recent bushfires, our team thought it would be a great idea to have an additional week of hosting for exchange students at the end of this term. We want to give them the experience of city life for a week, and show them around our home city Melbourne by taking them to the footy, and experiencing Melbourne culture.

So, we need families to volunteer open their homes and host these regional students so they can get a break from the fires and the hardship. It would not only mean a lot to them, but it would also mean a lot to us to be able to share the science opportunities we have at JMSS with other kids just like us who may not have the same opportunities.

Thank you all for your support,

The School Captains

Jackson McAloon, Emmy-Lou Reeve, Charlotte Gilley and Zac Elimelech