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Community programs – getting students involved

Community programs are an important part of our Yarra Valley Community School’s (YVCS) curriculum. Students gain transferable skills that can help them in the future and also play a part of giving back to the community they live in. Last year the Senior and Intermediate students from YVCS polished up their entrepreneurial skills by creating and running several social enterprise projects. The students developed their own small businesses which they ran in the local community. Money was raised which was then donated to causes that they felt could use their support. These social enterprises included:

School canteen
Car wash ‘Oh my gosh it’s a car wash’
Making and selling beauty products
Growing garden seedlings for selling
Teaching basic computer skills to grade 6 Steiner School students
Providing a landscaping service that included mowing and gardening for elderly and disabled members of the community
Native animals mentoring project – students helped build boxes for the animals with boys from the Mt Evelyn Primary school

These businesses proved to be a great success with funds being raised to help orphans in Bali and a donation to Anchor to support young people dealing with homelessness. They also used some of the funds to pay for their own year 12 graduation dinner.

On Monday 22nd of February they had a visit from Heidi Tucker (CEO) and Lisa Stockheim from Anchor. The students were presented with a certificate of appreciation and a thank you letter for our donation. Lisa had a great discussion with the students about the causes of homelessness and the services that Anchor provides. They also asked how the students would like the money spent. By engaging with the students and having them take part in the decision making it was decided that the money would be spent on food. The students felt that food was the best choice as it would benefit the most number of people. Several of the students were quite disappointed that the funding around homelessness is so inadequate and said they wanted to help more in the future.

“What an inspiration these students are, most coming from disadvantaged backgrounds themselves and their main goal is to help others – we are very grateful for being a part of the 2015 program and look forward to 2016, keep up the great work” Heidi Tucker – CEO Anchor

“The students felt great about being able to help people in need and gained a lot of skills that they can add to their resumes and help them get employment.” Mark Hunt – YVCS Coordinator

“This is totally awesome being able to donate to these great causes.” Sean – VCAL student  (in image above)
The experiences gained through these community programs have helped the students prepare the projects for 2016. Due to the success of last year’s social enterprises some of the same projects will make a return along with some new ideas.

The Social Enterprise Project is supported by the Victorian Government.

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This isn’t the first time the students have raised money for people in need, check out what they did to raise funds for a Kenya orphanage last year.
YVCS Students making a difference
YVCS Students making a difference part 2

If you would like to know more about our youth education programs click here.

VCAL Students get the green thumbs up

Supporting Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Living within UYCH – Introducing the UYCH Growing Community.

The UYCH Mt Evelyn Campus has launched its very own community garden with the vision and aim of providing a general garden space for our students and community members to create and maintain their own gardens.  We hope the garden will encourage sustainable and environmentally friendly living within our community and provide people with the opportunity to create and utilise a garden space that they may not have an opportunity to do so in their own home. It is also a great concept to encourage and promote healthy eating and activity within our organisation and local community.

Historically the garden operated under Morrisons, however in the change-over with UYCH the Community Garden program was left unattended.  This year, our VCAL landscaping class have been working tirelessly to tidy and clean up any over-grown areas so new members could start using the garden and planting their seeds for the season.

There are 8 plots in total, 5 large and 3 small with a wood-fire pizza oven on site that can also be used by members. The use of the garden has already proven popular with departments of UYCH and past garden users from the Mt Evelyn Community already expressing interest and booking their garden plots.

Our Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) kids and our VCAL students in particular have already hired plots and have been busy planning their garden projects.

Some of our VCAL students for example, are currently working on a Social Enterprise that link to their work related skills units, in this case they are using the community garden to run a plant sales Social Enterprise called ‘Jeffery’s Garden’.  The aim of the Social Enterprise program is to re-engage our youth with the community and give them confidence and leadership skills. Jeffery’s Garden will be selling winter seedlings to the local community in Term 3 and they hope to continue this enterprise into Spring and Summer.  They want to provide the community with healthy and fresh home grown produce with 50% of their profits going towards the Guide Dog Association and Animal Aid and the remainder going back into the business to keep it running.

To reduce costs they are using recycled pots which have been donated by community members and recently they received a $50 donation from Bunnings Warehouse. They are grateful for any community contribution and ask if you have something you think might be useful including sharing your gardening knowledge please consider their needs. If you have any old plastic soft drink bottles or plastic pots, we have arranged a drop off bin in the kitchen at the Mt Evelyn Campus, 20 Old Hereford Rd.

Here’s what one of our students have to say about having a community garden at UYCH and what it means to them:

“As a part of the gardening group I am gaining knowledge and skills on how to take proper care for plants. I am enjoying working with my friends and doing something that I feel passionate about”. Gillian – VCAL Student

This is a very exciting addition to the UYCH Mt Evelyn campus and our local community. We can’t wait to see what plants, fruit and vegetables start flourishing from the garden plots.

If you’re interested in becoming a plot user, please fill in your details on our expression of interest form to or contact 9736 1457.