Headteachers of 16 of Warrington’s Catholic schools have been blown away by the scale of donations their school communities have made to their ‘Hope in a Bag’ project this week which kicked off the Year of Jubilee in the town. Organised by the SVP societies of Cardinal Newman Catholic High School and St. Peter’s RC Primary school, all 15 Catholic primary schools from across Shrewsbury and Liverpool Dioceses have been collecting items such as sleeping bags, toothbrushes and toiletries that will be of use to those who are without permanent accommodation. These donations have then been put into rucksacks so that they can be given to those who are without a home.
The bags were supposed to be delivered on Friday January 24th to ‘Room at the Inn, to support the users of their service having been collected in the Newman school minibus by volunteer students from the different schools, who weaved their way between all of the schools across the town despite the gale force winds! It turned out, however, that the volume of donations from the primary schools was so large, that the Cardinal Newman minibus was filled several times over. In the end, it took an extra two days of collections to bring all of the donations together and hand them over to their destination on Wednesday 29th January.
Cardinal Newman Chaplain, Louise James, who was overseeing the collection and delivery of the bags with support from the students, said ‘it has been amazing to see that every single school invited to participate has collected so much to support those in need. We are really moved by how enthusiastically the students have responded’ Helen Lea, Headteacher of St. Peter’s primary school, added ‘this is just one of the events that the Catholic schools across the town have planned for the Year of Jubilee. We have a wonderful community of students, parents and staff in our Warrington schools and we work together incredibly closely. Thisis just one of the ways in which we hope to make a positive impact to the town as we respond to Pope Francis’ call and we are so grateful to the support of our families with this event.’ The schools involved in the project were:
St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School
St. Peter’s Catholic Primary School
St. Augustine’s Catholic Primary School
St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School
St Paul of the Cross Catholic Primary School
St. Alban’s Catholic Primary School
Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School
St Lewis Catholic Primary School
St Stephen’s Catholic Primary School
St. Peter’s Catholic Primary School
St Oswald’s Catholic Primary School
St Benedict’s Catholic Primary School
St Bridget’s Catholic Primary School
Our Lady’s Catholic Primary School
St Monica’s Catholic Primary School
and Cardinal Newman Catholic High School.
