Mercy News

150 women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer in the Mackay region. On Sunday 31 March, Justice@Mercy along with Zonta and over 30 volunteers worked to stuff, sew and package 150 breast cushions that will be distributed to ladies who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and have required surgery. The volunteers included 6 Mercy staff, 7 St Patrick’s students, 16 Mercy students and parents and friends. There was a production line of people ironing on the Zonta decals, weighing the stuffing to fill the cushions, stuffing the cushions, sewing the cushions and packing the cushions ready for delivery to hospitals. Thank you to all who came along to help with this cause. It was a lovely afternoon for volunteers to do a service that means a lot to women in our own community.

On Friday 22 March the Pindar Panthers put their Masterchef hats on and held a Bake Sale to raise funds for Caritas. Close to 50 students volunteered in some way or another to help out in a bake sale, including baking delicious treats, setting up and packing up the stall, promoting the sale or selling to the hungry masses. This sale raised an amazing $680 for Caritas Australia's annual Lenten fundraising and awareness raising project - Project Compassion.

Mercy College Mackay has been awarded the Eco-School Bronze Award by Eco-schools, Australia. The Environmental Committee are to be congratulated for their hard work towards attaining this award by participating in the Eco-school’s program during 2018.

Last year the Committee focused on highlighting the issue of soft plastics, with the introduction of the College Soft Plastics Recycling Program, collection of data through a whole-school environmental survey and presentation of findings at College assemblies.

The Committee have now started their journey towards the Silver Award with the ultimate goal of attaining the prestigious, internationally recognised Green Flag Award.

The Auslan Club was invited to sign the National Anthem on Saturday 23 March at the Mackay Cutters v the CQ Capars QRL game at the BB Print Stadium.

31 students and 7 staff of the College Auslan Club signed the National Anthem. For most of the students this was their first time signing in public, while Tiffany Vella sang the National Anthem.

We will be having many more opportunities to sign in public and one of our major signing events is in Townsville on 20 July to sign the National Anthem for the Cowboys v Rabbitohs NRL game at 1300smiles Stadium.

Justice@Mercy visited Homefield’s Aged-care on Wednesday 20 March. The students spent time with the residents making Christmas cards that we will later be giving to Stella Maris to distribute to seafarers at Christmas time. Both students and residents enjoyed being creative making the cards and some of the residents had never made them before. The Jusice@Mercy committee had such a lovely time; we will be going back to Homefields at least once a term.