Mercy News

Today as a community of faith we celebrate Mercy Day.

Today is an opportunity to commemorate the day with which Catherine McAuley opened the House of Mercy. We give thanks for the life of Catherine McAuley who had a mission and education vision which centered around being Christ-like to others. Catherine and her community of women commenced their work of Mercy 194 years ago which has since seen the work of Sisters of Mercy expand to over 46 countries around the world.

Congratulations to the ‘Mercy in Action’ Encouragement Award Recipients

• Year 7 - Rexjan Melocotones
• Year 8 - Elena Mathew & Reagan Tame
• Year 9 - To be announced Week 1 Term 4

The Justice@Mercy Committee invited residents from St Francis of Assisi to the College to play bingo. The residents treated the students to some musical performances before we played bingo. Bingo experts from the St Francis helped the students to perfect their bingo calling skills and all enjoyed a lovely afternoon. It was wonderful to see students enjoy bridging the gap between the generations.

What a term it’s been for the Vinnies Committee! The students have been busy with a number of fundraising events to raise money for Mercy Works including the following:

Teacher Personal Assistant Auction

On Friday 10 September, the Pavillion was a hive of activity with 13 teachers auctioned off to be personal assistants’ for a lunch time. The students who secured the highest bid now have the opportunity to have their teacher help them with their homework, cut the tuckshop line for them, perform a dare etc. A total of $350 was raised for Mercy Works.

Tape a Teacher to the Wall

On Tuesday 14 September, three brave teachers volunteered to test the theory that a teacher can indeed be literally taped to a wall! Students purchased a length of tape for 50 cents and Mr Bettington was the most popular target. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough tape purchased for him to literally stick to the wall, but all had fun in the name of charity.

The Statewide School Cricket knockout competition ran throughout Term 3. Mercy College Mackay and St Patricks’s College entered 5 very strong teams competing across four divisions. Mercy College had two teams in the boys Intermediate competitions (Year 7-9) and one team in the girls Intermediate competition. Mercy College and St. Patricks combined in the Senior competition entering one team in the boys division (Year 10-12) and one team in the girls Senior division.

The combined colleges won all four divisions in the Mackay region and last week our Senior boys and Intermediate girls and Senior girls competed in the Northern Queensland final. Unfortunately for our boys, we lost to a strong Ignatius Park side.

For our two girls teams (the Intermediate and Senior teams) it was a different story with both teams winning their games comprehensively.

It has been a very successful season so far for Mercy/St Pats and hopefully we will have two State Championship sides in Term 4.

Week 8 was the long awaited Business Week where the 2 classes of Year 10 Economics and Business students finally launched their social enterprises and opened for business! The students had a hugely successful week selling a variety of things in their market stalls from coffee, hot chocolate and muffins before school with online orders and even tap-and-go facilities all created from their own initiatives, to slushies, hot chips, fairy floss, brownies, beef jerky, bubble tea, fudge and cupcakes for the staff and students of the College to indulge in. The entertainment stalls were also a real hit with the Sponge-a-thon and $100 Hang Challenge creating an atmosphere alike to a carnival/fair every lunch break this week.