Mini Vinnies

“Children take on a number of voluntary roles within the school, including, school councillors, sports councillors and Mini-Vinnies, enabling them to use their gifts and talents in a spirit of discipleship.” Diocesan Monitoring Visit July 2018 

 

We are sure that many of you reading this are saying “Who on earth are the Mini Vinnies?” Well let us introduce ourselves!

We are a group of 10 & 11 year olds who are part of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. The Society of St Vincent de Paul was started just over 200 years ago by Blessed Frederic Ozanam, and is a worldwide Society. It is concerned with helping the poor and needy wherever they may be.

We have a President and Vice President who we elected from our group. They lead the meeting. We also elected our Treasurer, Secretary and Spiritual Advisor.

We have adults who help when needed with the co-ordination of activities: Mrs Webb and Mrs Habayeb, who are parishioners who work with young people from St Edmund’s Parish.

Although we are still at Primary School we feel that being a Mini Vinnie and part of the Vincentian family will provide us with an opportunity to do some good in our community and the wider world.

We do this in a number of ways: –

  • First of all through prayer. Our meetings always start and finish with a prayer. We talk to Jesus each day and talk to others about him.
  • Also we take a ’Pledge’ and are given a Certificate to say we are a Mini Vinnie, and we wear a badge on our school uniforms.
    You can see pictures of us making our Pledge at our whole school Harvest Mass in October when we made our promises in front of our school community so that everyone in our school knows who we are and can support us in our work.
  • Undertaking other activities such as going and visiting the elderly in Nursing and Residential homes and helping serve the elderly parishioners at the Parish lunch are things we hope to start later this term.
  • Supporting our school friends, especially trying to be a friend to those in need or in trouble.
  • Through fund raising activities.

We hope this has given you some idea as to who we are.