Be Bold Be Heard group – visit to Lazarus Community Centre

Last Wednesday, we walked from Geelong High School to the Lazarus Community Centre across from the hospital and helped prepare and serve lunch. We arrived by 9:15 and got straight into prepping some vegetables ready for lunch. We cut up 2 HUGE pumpkins and lots of potatoes into bite size pieces ready to be cooked and served with veal parmas. Prior to going we invited Jade Hamilton to our school to speak to her about how we could support Lazarus. We had met Jade a couple of times at the Be Bold Be Heard forums and were inspired by her work to want to support the centre. For our first visit, Jade recommended we keep it small. There were 5 students and 2 teachers that went which ended up making an amazing team. We helped sort and refold clothes, cut, prep, assemble and serve lunch, serve hot beverages and even prepared a dessert for later on, so that there wasn't anything going to waste.

We served lunch to about 30 of their clients. We came out with a wider perspective on what actually goes into serving lunch for so many people and some background on how Lazarus operate and what services they provide to vulnerable members of the community. As a school we are taking donations of the priority items to help Lazarus to keep helping and changing lives. Jade has so many plans for the future of Lazarus and has such a kind soul as she sets out every day to put a smile on at least one person’s face. Lazarus runs based on their volunteers, they have about 60 volunteers on rotation and have at least 4 people a day. Everyone was so sweet and welcoming, and it was so nice to see so many happy faces when we arrived. The second half of our group are looking forward to their visit to Lazarus later this term. The connection that Jade has with the clients is wonderful to see. Our Be Bold Be Heard group are going to keep working with Lazarus to create stronger community links with our school community. If you would like to contribute to our donation drive for Lazarus, you can drop off any of the following items to the front office:

• Men’s tracksuit pants and jeans
• Men’s & women’s jumpers
• Warm clothes
• Belts
• Cordial
• Coffee
• Sugar
• Biscuits
• Long life milk
• Long life custard
• Milo
• Can fruit
• Can tomatoes
• Passata
• Pasta sauces
• Toilet paper
• Paper towels

Abby Moss – 10MA