6 July 2023

The community at Holy Saviour Parish School, Vermont South, celebrated the beginning of winter with a party and an important message.

The school’s first Winter Fun Fest was a celebration to mark the end of the first semester and to congratulate the students on all their hard work in the first half of the year. The day featured games and competitions, table tennis, giant Jenga, rob the nest and freeze ball, as well as a movie on the big screen and a pizza lunch.

For Principal Steve Evans, the day was not only a celebration of the end of term, but a reminder for his students that the colder months bring challenges to some of Melbourne’s most vulnerable people. ‘I went from a whole-school celebration that afternoon to the Vinnies CEO Sleepout that evening and the realities of Melbourne’s winter for rough sleepers became very clear for me’, he said. Together with other Catholic school principals and Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) office staff, Steve raised much-needed funds for the work of the St Vincent de Paul Society to support the homeless.