Year 9 CLC Program Chronicles

Our Year 9 CLC cohort have kicked into Turbo Mode in Term 4, getting out and about volunteering in the community each Wednesday.

Having gone through the Term 3 program which was designed to give them the skills and confidence required to, they are now being trusted at various organisations around town almost completely independently.

At Wangaratta West Primary School, we have 3 groups out in force. Under their brand new state-of-the-art shelter over their outdoor sports courts, a 6-strong “Sports Clinic” team have been running Basketball Clinics for Grade 6 P.E classes. Around their schoolgrounds, we have a 7-man “Grounds Crew”, who have been busy completing labouring jobs such as filling playgrounds with new sand and bark chips, and weeding the school’s numerous garden beds. Inside, we have 9 “Classroom Helpers” assisting in various junior classes with reading and other areas. 

It's been a pleasure watching our kids doing what they can to help the Wang West community. Eli Stegman, part of the Sport Clinic Group, drew special praise from Wang West leadership, after he went out of his way, twice, to assist with a prep student who had lost their way. Classroom Helper Jack Gambrell made such an impression on the first visit, with his proactiveness and ability to from a rapport with the littlies, that his classroom teacher made a special mention to leadership to highlight Jack. In the gardens, the boys have been willing to work from morning to lunch time, with Jackson Tilly spied on multiple occasions “running” his wheelbarrow such was his enthusiasm for Hard Yakka.

Down at the river at the Mullinmur precinct, 5 of our boys have been engaging in a range of tasks including building nesting boxes to for the Mullinmur wildlife to utilise. Other groups have been spending their days externally at St John’s Respect Aged Care, the Iloura Aged Care and Yarrunga Primary School. We also have some groups focusing on projects at school, including a planned Mural for the external wall of the CLC Building, a group of students recently returned from the Alpine School who are continuing their project of planting trees around our schoolgrounds, and other planning fundraising for organisations such as the Make A Wish Foundation and the Wangaratta Hospital.

From CLC staff and students, we would like to put out a sincere thank you to all community groups who are hosting our kids and allowing them to have these wonderful opportunities.

If there would be a thing that encapsulates CLC the most, it would be the expressions on the faces of the CLC kids as they emerge from these excursions, buzzing and telling stories about what they’ve done. Lots of tales about little kids not wanting them to leave, their conversations and connections with elderly residents at the aged care homes, and so much more. It is what CLC is all about, and is something remarkable to witness.