Students and supermarket create a caring partnership

SURF Coast Secondary College has extended its partnership with Woolworths in a bid to continue supporting local families throughout 2021.

Returning principal Erin Wright said the food aid program started as the school’s response to assist the number of families in need.

During the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic SCSC began cooking for vulnerable families, as well as teaming up with local businesses to provide them with groceries each week.

School captains Jason Scammell and Maya Supple said it was important to encourage more teenagers to get involved in the community and give back where possible.

“We are made up of teenagers at a school, and we are made up of a community who are doing good things, and this is just showing another way we are getting involved and giving back to the people that support us,” Jason said.

Recognising an ongoing need to support struggling locals, SCSC has extended its program and partnership with Woolworths as well as other local businesses including Peaches in Torquay.

“We thought it was a great opportunity to work in partnership and also make sure we are supporting the families in our community, some of them are definitely of students that go to our school, but some aren’t as well,” Ms Wright said. “It is important to send that message to our kids that we need to support everyone in the community.”

Ms Wright said she was proud to see students passionately driving the food aid program into its second year.

“Being active, empathetic members of the community is something that at SCSC we always strive for and look for opportunities that we can get our students to connect and understand the experiences of people who might be different to them,” she said. “You don’t even realise sometimes in your own community how different the lives are of other people.”

With a strong sense of community spirit being instilled into students, some have now discovered further ways to assist where they can.

“All the students can help in the ways that they feel they want to, you can volunteer to do things, or you can come to the school with your own initiatives that you would like to implement,” Maya said.

“My family has collected Easter eggs for the children’s ward of the Geelong Hospital for the past seven years and this year I wanted to involve the school and the leadership team.

“I am very grateful for the school and Woolworths that they have been able to take this on board.”

A collection box can be found at Woolworths Central and Torquay North where members of the community can donate non-perishables to the food aid program that will be distributed amongst struggling families once a week, as well as Maya’s box that will be donated to the Children’s Ward for Easter.