The Newington College Service Learning Program is designed to enhance our boys’ awareness of the inequities that exist within our local, national and global communities.
Newington boys helping out for the Exodus Foundation's Loaves and Fishes restaurant.
Most importantly, Newington’s Service Learning Program is about doing.
It is about getting out into our community and giving the boys practical opportunities to work alongside charity workers and community volunteers, therefore developing a much greater sense of empathy for their fellow ‘man’.
Newington is already developing close relationships with five domestic and international charities and overseas schools — SOS International Children's Villages in Nepal and Tupou College, Tonga.
These organisations are:
The Fred Hollows Foundation – Australian and international blindness prevention and surgery to cure cataract blindness in poor communities.
The Tear Foundation – understanding and addressing the causes and results of poverty internationally.
CanTeen – helping other children and families who are living with cancer. English teacher Mr Will van Asperen is personally involved with the charity, and each year the school gets involved in the national bandanna day to raise money for the organisation.
The Salvation Army Oasis Foundation – homelessness and young people at risk in our community.
The Exodus Foundation – Loaves & Fishes Free Restaurant. Community welfare for disadvantaged and marginalised people.
Poetry Man Shows Appreciation
Three Year 11 Johnstone House boys, who were volunteering at Exodus’ Loaves and Fishes restaurant, received a touching gesture of appreciation from Ivan , ‘the Poetry Man’.
Ivan is a regular patron of the Loaves and Fishes Restaurant that serves breakfast to the homeless and disadvantaged of Sydney’s Inner West. His gifted words are a reminder to all how we can touch the lives of others when we perform selfless acts.
When We Were
You fed us when we were hungry,
And said a simple “Hello”
With the voice of sincerity and somewhat mellow,
Through the sounds of a distant bell
Our hearts are joined together,
With the symphony of love as well,
The minds and souls are getting better.
You disappear suddenly without sight,
The stardust gently follows,
I admire quietly into the night,
The city acknowledges the evening flows.
~Ivan, a Croatian Immigrant