About King's Community Service Programme

King’s College aims to give its pupils an all-round education and it is our responsibility to encourage students to look beyond their own personal goals, be able to relate to others and show a degree of concern for them.

Last year over 500 students at King’s College were engaged in our Community Service programme. Each week, students volunteer their own time to help those in the community who really need it. This year we are hoping to build the programme even further.

In 2012 the following Community Services are available to our students.
Middlemore Hospital Reception, Kidz First Children’s Hospital, IHC and Retirement Homes, Woman’s Refuge Centre, Refugee Centre, College Homework Programme, Reading in Schools in five local schools, Brain Injury Rehabilitation, and visiting the Day-Care centres. As well as this the programme includes one-off voluntary events such as charity drives for Kidz First and Ronald McDonald House.

At King’s College, we believe that Christianity is expressed through service to others. It is our hope that our students learn that freely giving ourselves to the service of others is a lifelong and highly rewarding responsibility.

"Faith by itself, if it has no works, is DEAD!" James 2:17

One of the special initiatives of Term 3, as part of our Community Service Programme, has been a wonderful opportunity provided for senior students to go and cook for the families at Ronald McDonald House. The House provides families with accommodation and meals who may have children with critical and long-term illnesses and are being cared for at Starship Children’s Hospital. The students were inspired to help when King’s Chapel was paid a visit by Ronald McDonald House and vivacious mother of two, Tiffany, whose younger child, Eva, is being cared for at Starship and who are being housed at the facility.

There was a massive student response and so after being trimmed to something manageable, almost thirty students cooked a menu planned by Senior Sacristan, Rosemary Horrocks. Ingredients for pizzas, pasta, fettuccini and roast potatoes, together with salads and chocolate brownie, were carried across town, and the student helpers peeled, sliced and diced their way from 4pm to the dead-line of 6pm. The pressure was on. Like a scene from Master Chef, the students fired up the commercial kitchen and feverishly set-up for dinner. Then come 6pm – or thereabouts, queues were formed and suddenly the kitchen was transformed into a servery with about 100 people queuing for dinner.

The response of everyone there? Fantastic! The comment from the families and the children was this was equally the best dinner they had been served. The students were also superb. No sooner had dinner been served and everyone fed, then everyone was in the kitchen washing and cleaning, leaving the kitchen immaculate – just as it had been found. But of course, the indelible memory was that the evening had provided a good number of the students with one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling nights they could remember.

Rev Gareth Walters