Vinnies Winter Sleepout

The sleepout last Friday was a great success with 36 students and staff attending. It was great to see such a large turn out on such a chilly night with a low of 3°. Many slept in different ways from on mattresses, couches to swags. We had many games provided with dinner being pizza from Armidale pizza. 

We split into 3 reasonably even teams and came up with team names that had to be a mixture of marvel and DC. We had a few interesting team names, consisting of, American man (Captain America and Superman), Spiderman (Spiderman and Batman), and lastly (the best team) Batgroot (Batman and Groot). 

We played 2 games led by lassalian youth minister Jayden. The first being bad jokes, with each team trying to come up with the worst joke. We were privileged to have Mr Roff join us to decide the best bad joke (in which Imogen had the best bad joke). The second game was using balloons. You would put the balloon between your legs and hop to the other side where half your team was doing the same thing. When you got to each other you would play scissors, paper, rock. With the winner being able to continue to the other side and the loser had to go back to their team and give the balloon to the next player. This proved very difficult for some and easier for others, but it was great to see the majority of people getting into it and having a go. After that Mrs Roff conducted a game called "if you". This game is where you have a circle of chairs with one person in the middle. The middle person says "if you" with a topic or question of your choice. Eg. If you have travelled overseas. If this applied to you then you would stand up and try to find a free seat. If you don't you end up in the middle and on it goes. 

We then got ready for bed and watched Shrek. Once that was over it was time for lights out. Boys and Girls being separated into different rooms. Different people would tell you different answers to how they slept, some stayed up talking, others slept alright. Waking up, around 7- 8 o'clock to breakfast of an egg and bacon roll, with juice. After that everyone started to leave and go home.

The reason for this sleepout was to show awareness and raise funds for Vinnies in Armidale. At the beginning of the sleepout we had raised over $1500 to support the work of the Fresh Start program run through Freeman House here in Armidale. The program helps homeless men and women who are recovering from substance addiction, as well as their families. I asked around a couple of people and the main conclusion was that a lot of people liked the experience and were sure to come back next year. So hopefully we can see the same support if not better next year. 

It was great to see all of those smiling faces have such a great time together whilst spending time together. 

Josie Ryan and Imogen Hislop, Faith and Service Captains