TY News by Emma Furlong

As part of transition year we make the transition from junior cycle to senior cycle. We move from being young children to becoming mature young adults. A part of this transition involves maturing to become kind-hearted and generous people here at St. Patrick’s College. This Christmas our school has involved all transition years in the Team Hope shoe box appeal. Team Hope is a charity which helps needy children and their family’s world wide but they are especially well known for their shoe box appeal. This is a project to get as many people as possible wrapping shoe boxes and filling them with items such as toys, sweets, hats, scarfs, tooth brushes, crayons etcetera….. .

These boxes are then sent to children in Africa who have nothing and have never received a Christmas present. The idea is that you fill the box something for them to wash with, something for them to write with, something to wear and something to wow them like a cuddly toy. We were given a presentation on the Team Hope Christmas shoe box appeal by two Team Hope members, Jamie and Niamh. We were shown a heart warming video of where the shoe boxes end up and how much of a difference they make to the young children’s lives.

Their ecstatic faces lit up as they received a shoebox full of gifts, simple things that we take for granted. After watching such a powerful clip every fourth year wanted to get behind this project. All 38 transition years were placed in charge of this project in our school to try and get as many boxes as we could.

We did everything possible!! We made announcements reminding people to bring in a box , we were all assigned a class to remind and collect from each day , we ran competitions for the junior classes to see what class could bring in the most boxes and we even made a presentation to the staff to try and get the involved. We spent countless hours probing through boxes to make sure everything was ok. In total we received just over 70 boxes and received €280 in donations for the shipping costs!!!!

This just goes to show what is possible when we as a school pull together. There was not one fourth year who did not participate and bring in a shoebox. In fact most of us will be helping to pack boxes at the Team Hope warehouse in Blackpool. In St. Patrick’s College the academic side of our education is very important but we also realise that so is giving just a little something back.