Mission and Identity

Community Service

At the end of last term, our Year 10 students participated in their Community Service camp at Huonville, the first time that the camp has been conducted outside of Hobart.

With the recent bushfires affecting a number of people in the area, the students were sent out to assist a variety of local organisations still recovering from the turmoil of the summer. The student helped out in schools, an aged care facility, ran a program with Edmund Rice Camps and participated in Landcare activities with the local council. They were immersed in the day to day life of the Huon Valley and gained insights into some of the issues of the local area and how they could help alleviate them.

When reflecting on the experience, a common theme that kept coming out was that presence was the key to the camp. The forming of relationships with people was the most important thing that occurred, and will always be the most important thing that we can do. The accumulation of material wealth, the number of likes on social media, the desire to have the latest things; all are insignificant in our lives next to the basic need for people to understand each other, and in turn to be understood. The Gospels tell of a man coming to Jesus and asking about how he can inherit eternal life; Jesus responds by advising him to sell his belongings, give the proceeds to the poor and then come follow Him. It is that advice that led Mary Aikenhead to form the Sisters of Charity, whose example and philosophy we try to emulate when we do this camp every year.

A big thanks need to go out to Andrew Blackett from Edmund Rice Camps for helping to organise the camp, to the staff at the Huonville PCYC, Franklin PS, Huonville PS. Glen Huon PS, Huon Elder Care and the Huon Council, and to the staff and students who made the camp a wonderful experience for all.

Anthony Chapman

Director of Mission and Identity