By Max Davies
CRAZY hair was the talk of the day at Lancefield’s St Mary’s Primary School as students let their creativity shine in a whole-school fundraising effort.
Organised by the school’s Mini Vinnies group, the crazy hair day served to raise funds for students and families of Exford Primary School who were impacted in last month’s horror bus crash near Melton.
Mini Vinnies is a year five group that operates as part of the larger St Vincent de Paul Society, often going out to do good deeds, host fundraisers and cater to the community.
When its members heard about a bus crash at Eynesbury, north-west of Melbourne, last month, they wanted to help.
St Mary’s community liaison leader Jo Shannon said the Mini Vinnies group wanted to encourage the whole school to raise funds for those injured in the crash.
“As a community, the students are very good at doing things and getting involved to help the wider community, and it’s really nice to see these ideas come from them,” she said.
“The money will go into a big fund that’s happening through Exford Primary and I’ll be letting them know what the kids did and how much has [been donated] just so that they’re aware of what we’ve been doing.”
Hair styles included bright dyed hair, spiders with googly eyes, big spikes and even balloons, with all students who took part required to give a gold coin donation upon arriving to school.
Mini Vinnies also sold Zooper Doopers at recess and lunch time, and collected about $250 in gold coin donations.
“Generally we do fundraisers, like at the end of last year we did a fundraiser for Rochester Primary for the floods. We just look at what’s happening around and we make a decision on where we’d like our fundraiser to go,” Ms Shannon said.
“They just wanted to show their support for Exford, because being in a regional area a lot of our students catch buses to and from school. They just wanted to cheer them up in some way if they could.”
Upcoming events
St Mary’s is also organising several upcoming activities, including a student showcase this term and an initiative led by Cobaw Community Health next term to raise awareness of homelessness in Victoria.
For the last day of term this Friday, parents and families are invited to visit the school for the first hour of the day to view a student showcase of learning, demonstrating what students have been working on.
In term three, students will also work with Cobaw Community Health to create 6000 origami paper houses, which will be presented on the steps of Parliament to bring light to the issue of homelessness.
