Getting the school year off to a great start
Getting the school year off to a great start
8 February 2022
Townsville Faithworks Corps Officer Captain Bronwyn Lithgow (right) and volunteer Amy (left) assist a school mum in choosing books and stationery for her children.
The delay in Queensland students returning to school over government concerns about the spread of COVID-19 bought Townsville Faithworks Corps some time to organise its annual back-to-school assistance program for 2022.
Corps Officer Captain Bronwyn Lithgow said the program had been operating for several years to help vulnerable families equip their children with the necessary books and stationery for school. She admitted the two-week delay provided more time to complete some last-minute organisation.
While the corps did not record how many people came in over the two days of the program (2-3 February), Bronwyn said the quantities ordered were “in the hundreds”. “The number of kids we’ll probably be helping would be somewhere between 100 and 200,” she said.
Red Shield Appeal funds are used to buy the books and stationery, and a team of about six corps volunteers are involved in the distribution process.
Bronwyn said the program was “tweaked” a little each year, adding various items to the list of stationery on offer. This year’s additional items were pencil cases and display books.
She said the corps tried to cover the basic but necessary needs of the student: “We’re not going to tick off every item on everyone’s book lists, but we get the ‘big ticket items’. The pencil cases come with everything in them ... pencils, rulers, erasers, glue sticks etc.”
The corps also orders extra items, which are set aside for teachers at nearby Vincent State School. “That’s really where [the program began] – helping the teachers at the school when children turned up without something,” Bronwyn said. “It grew from there.”
Bronwyn said it was important to help vulnerable families get their children back to school, particularly the parents who are embarrassed that they cannot provide what their children need.
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