Children's Book Drive
Last term, Marion Bruce House participated in a children’s book drive, collecting and delivering children’s books to lower decile primary schools to use in their classrooms and libraries. The inspiration for this initiative came from the large collection of old childhood books I had in my home. Wellloved books, in good condition, but just sitting there and gathering dust. This book drive gave the opportunity to pass on these cherished books to kids who could love them just as we did when we were little. I managed to connect with three schools: East Tamaki Primary School, Flatbush Primary School and Bairds Mainfreight Primary School, who were happy to be the recipients of our books. Over two weeks Marion Bruce House managed to collect approximately 1000 books, all in excellent condition. We delivered these books and the receiving schools were delighted. This book drive was a great chance to recycle and give back to our community, overall this was an awesome experience.
Scarlett Featherstone
Year 12, Marion Bruce
Food Drive
The South Auckland Christian Foodbank (SACFB) is one of the closest foodbank organisations to our college and they deliver to over 100 families per day in our wider community. Their goal is to relieve poverty in South Auckland by distributing food parcels and other basic supplies to people who are poor, in need, aged or suffering genuine hardship; as well as providing budgeting, counselling and other programmes. It is sad that the need for foodbanks in South Auckland is so important and won’t be going down anytime soon. This year the SACFB have needed more support than ever from other organisations and sponsors, especially through COVID and winter. During the latest lockdown, the SACFB were delivering 1,000 food parcels to families every week. The volunteers were working out of just a small garage in Papatoetoe at that point and only recently got the funding to move into a bigger warehouse in Manukau. During weeks 4 and 5 of term 2, we asked the ladies of Marion Bruce House to bring in any food or sanitary product donations they could to support the SACFB. Many girls brought in supplies ranging from canned spaghetti and baked beans, noodles and sanitary items. We ended up with bags and bags of donated items. In week 7, Mrs Adams, Rubie Duder and I were able to go and drop them to the SACFB warehouse as well as see the Marion Bruce House donations be packed into boxes and driven out to homes. A massive thank you to Marion Bruce House families who donated anything, you kindly made a big contribution to the SACFB. Ian Foster and his team of volunteers at the warehouse wanted us to share with you how incredibly grateful they were for the support.
Mikaela Hawley
Year 13, Marion Bruce
