Written by Emili Biswas (9PN)
On Thursday 3 December 2020, a team of members from the Glenavon Community Hub visited Lynfield College. They told us about their community and the work they do, and collected family packages crafted by Lynfield College students as part of the LYNC·ED ‘Taking on Poverty Workshop’.
This workshop consisted of a group of Year 9 and 10 students, along with teachers Ms Phelan, Ms Arthur, Ms Hameed and Ms Delgrosso. Our workshop’s goal was to take action on helping people experiencing poverty in New Zealand. We made family packages by using donations and vouchers of money to buy bulks of foods and snacks. We also used donations collected from students with a wide range of products like toys, books, clothes, toiletries and treats. In total we made 20 family packages filled with essential items and goodies. As an additional treat students made more than 100 Christmas Crackers by hand that were filled with chocolate, candy and a personal message of kindness.
The Glenavon Hub is run by the Glenavon Community Trust Board and Eva Wongchiu (Hub coordinator). The Glenavon Community Trust’s mission is ‘doing good stuff together’ to support families in helping each to live happy, healthy lives. Eva and the other members shared about what they do to help people in poverty and how the process works. This topic on Taking on Poverty and taking action connected with Whanaungatanga tika which is one of our school values. This value represents kinship, relationships and the sense of belonging. As a group of students and teachers we partnered with Glenavon Community Trust to portray a sense of belonging to families in need, and also enhancing their Christmas. This workshop made us feel grateful for what we have, and we were blessed to participate in such a good cause. Poverty is an infinite issue but we have the power to make a huge difference.
