This Christmas, Emerald Secondary College’s Year 8 SEAL class is stepping up to spread some festive cheer by leading a “Reverse Advent Calendar” project with the help of staff member, Katie Ryan.
The initiative, inspired by the students’ recent study of A Christmas Carol, encourages the community to donate non-perishable items at drop-off points in Emerald in the lead-up to Christmas and all donations will be packaged and delivered to the Foothills Community Centre in Ferntree Gully by 15 December.
“In Year 8 SEAL, we were reading A Christmas Carol, which is a story all about Scrooge and how horribly miser he is. And when talking about themes of the character redemption arc, students were talking about how they redeem themselves,” Ryan said.
“And one of the things that came up was, “oh, we could be helpful”. So we looked for ways to be helpful and one student, Jenna, came across the Foothills Community initiative for the Reverse Advent Calendar.”
The project has been entirely student-led, with the class creating posters, writing campus posts, emailing year-level leaders, and liaising with print classes to reach the broader community.
Ryan said she has loved watching the students take charge.
“It has been wonderful to watch the students lead in the learning, they have come alive through applied study and this project will sustain fixing itself into the curriculum for next year as well,” she said.
Eight donation bins have been set up across the school and in the wider Emerald community, including at Woolworths and IGA, which are partnering with the school.
“It’s a complete coincidence the Year 8s with their eight bins – the universe is speaking to us,” she said.
The Year 8 students took the school minibus into town to personally drop off the bins and meet the teams at Woolworths and IGA.
The initiative has also provided students with practical opportunities to develop communication and leadership skills.
“In today’s world, you often see kids on social media or inside…it was really nice to highlight them and spend time talking with them about how they could move outside of themselves into the community and support community initiatives,” Ryan said.
“Quite honestly, to care for others and to communicate is super important…seeing them talk to people about something that has nothing to do with ‘what can I get?’ but instead, ‘what can we give to someone else?’ is such a nice shift.”
The project started about three weeks ago, with collections underway for the past week.
Ryan said it’s been heartening to see the school community embrace the initiative.
“We’ve got lots of donations, all my office is full of non-perishables,” she said.
“We’ve got a bin in all of our spaces. The library has taken one on, wellbeing is involved, all of the senior school office, the junior school office, and the main office, and then, of course, offsite and the canteen. The canteen lady brought in a lot of donations, and they’ve got some stuff going on in their bin.”
“It’s been really fantastic project so far.”
For student Ella Pearton, the project has made classroom study feel tangible.
She said it made her learning “real” and allowed her to “learn more and give more to people that need that.”
Ryan hopes the project continues to be an annual part of the Year 8 SEAL curriculum.
“I’m also teaching Year 8 HCL next year, so we’ll end again with A Christmas Carol, and we’ll talk through the redemption arc and end with the project again next year. It’s been quite successful, and it’s nice to get the kids out of the classroom and into the community,” she said.
Members of the community are encouraged to drop off donations of non-perishable food, clothes, or Christmas gifts at the school or participating supermarkets before 15 December.
