A new initiative is happening across Newington College. We believe as a staff that it is important to give back to the community. The Jordon Café and Community Care Centre is an initiative of the Newtown Missions Uniting Church. It serves lunches on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays and holds a Thanksgiving dinner every Thursday evening from 6:00pm. The Centre and Café provide a safe and supportive space that aims to link people from a broad cross-section of the Newtown community.

A number of staff and students from all three campuses are volunteering every Thursday to help with the preparation of the evening meal. Volunteering is an important part of community service to help benefit the public in the community. It can have a lot of positive effects on adults as well as students, such as helping them to develop skills, making contacts, and allowing them to improve the quality of life of others.

As you would be aware, showing compassion towards others who are suffering and experiencing hardship is a basic tenet of Christian values. A desire to ease the difficulties of those less well off can be demonstrated in many ways. Showing compassion for others is something that comes from the heart and helps you relate to the problems that others are experiencing. Those that volunteer to help in the Care Centre in Newtown benefit in many ways from listening to the life stories of the less fortunate in the community.

To give you some idea of an evening volunteering at the church in Newtown, Ben and myself spent some time organising the kitchen and helping in the dining room. We also engaged in conversation with a number of people who were either volunteers themselves or those taking advantage of the services provided. Personally, I found it an extremely rewarding and humbling experience.

Throughout Term 2, other Newington College staff and senior students will be volunteering at the Church on Thursday evenings.

Leonie Russell – Year 3 Teacher