Operation Christmas Child

As part of her Dark Blue Leadership Diploma Year 10 student Jessica Walsh has been working with Year 7 students to create Christmas gift boxes for children in Vanuatu affected by Cyclone Pam that devastated much of the country in March.

Operation Christmas Child, an initiative created by Samaritan’s Purse, a benevolent institution specialising in meeting the immediate, critical needs of victims of conflict, disaster, famine, and epidemics throughout the world, aims to provide small gift boxes to children, many of which have never received a gift before.

Jessica provides a summary of her Operation Christmas Child initiative below:

Over the last term I have been working with the girls in Years 7 and 8 to collect Christmas gifts for a program called Operation Christmas Child. This program aims to collect shoeboxes filled with Christmas gifts and send them to children in countries that are not as fortunate as Australia. The boxes St Catherine’s have packed are being sent to children in Vanuatu, after Cyclone Pam devastated much of the country in March. Each form in Years 7 and 8 were asked to pack a box. These boxes had to have six gifts in them; an item to love, an item to play with, an item for school, an item for personal hygiene, an item to wear and a special item. The girls then had to provide a box and pack it with the gifts they had collected amongst the form. I was thrilled to receive these boxes back filled with dolls, headbands, books, pencils and more!

Jessica decided to undertake a St Catherine’s Leadership Diploma as she saw it as great opportunity to extend her leadership abilities. “The Leadership Diploma provides me with the opportunity to interact with some of the younger girls at School as well as gaining experience with leadership and organisation.”

Well done Jessica.

Mr Paul Cross
Deputy Principal