2020 Stay Over!
Last Friday night 60 students participated in our Annual Stay Over (in place of the Sleepout) and raised more than $2000 for our friends at HOME in Queanbeyan and Karinya House. A big thank you to all students, staff and parents who supported this event.
Homelessness in Australia is growing unfortunately and the need to offer people support in some way has never been more important. As a Catholic school, we spend time learning about people who are facing difficulties and that need assistance, this helps us to live out our mission as outlined in our College prayer. “Let us stand for others always giving generously without counting the cost”. We believe that the more community minded and ‘other’ orientated our students become, the more they will experience a holistic education. In serving others, it allows the individual to become more present and connected with others, as opposed to distant and detached. Below are facts about homelessness in Australia.
Fact 1: Homelessness can affect anyone you know – your neighbour, your friends, even your family can experience homelessness.
Fact 2: There are over 116,000 people in Australia experiencing homelessness on any given night.
Fact 3: More than 12,000 Australian children under the age of 12 have no home.
Fact 4: There are about 1600 homeless people in Canberra.
At St Edmund’s, we have a Social Justice model where each term we have a particular focus that enables our students to understand and learn about other people and the challenges that they face daily.
This term the focus is supporting local organisations in HOME in Queanbeyan and Karinya House. Please find below links to their homepage, they do so much good work and we pray that we at St Edmund’s can assist them in their mission to serve.
For more information about Karinya House. https://karinyahouse.asn.au/
For more information about Home in Queanbeyan please click on link-https://homeqbn.org/
Sarah Kelly President of Karinya House was the guest speaker at the Stay Over and shared with our boys what Karinya House does and helped answer many questions from our boys.
Reaching out to the Homeless
Prayer for people that are Homeless- Friday Lunch in Quad’
Learning about Homelessness
Seniors serving soup
Bringing light to others through prayer
Prayer
Lord our God,
You who so mysteriously call upon us
to share in the sufferings of Christ,
fill our hearts with compassion
for those who lack the warmth of a home.
God of Compassion, your love for us is revealed in your beloved son Jesus,
who was born into homelessness,
lived with nowhere to lay his head,
We commend to you in prayer this day
all men, women and children
who suffer because they have no shelter;
those who sleep in our streets and public spaces, who have nowhere safe to lay their heads, and who wander from place to place as a way of life.
Amen.
Michael Monagle
Assistant Principal – Mission and Identity