Blackfriars ELC get hands on to help the homeless

As the bitter winter temperatures continue to make life challenging for many, children from South Australia’s Blackfriars’ ELC Purple Room have gotten ‘hands on’ to bring comfort and warmth to Adelaide’s homeless population, making soup and collecting donations of non-perishable food items, blankets, beanies, scarves, gloves and socks.

As well as providing tangible support and connecting in with the compassionate ethos of the broader school community, the project has helped the preschoolers to differentiate between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ and to develop social and emotional skills such as empathy and kindness.

“For our ELC students, as with most preschool-aged children, they might think they need that chocolate bar, or need those hot chips, but the reality is quite different,” Purple Room Teacher Michelle McGinty explained.

“We’ve talked a lot to the children about basic needs, such as a roof over our head, somewhere safe to spend the night and a warm meal, particularly in this cold weather, and how lucky we are to have those things.”

As children learned that they have access to things which others may not, the discussion turned to how they might help those who are less fortunate, with the Purple Room children visiting the Adelaide Central Market to buy ingredients for chicken vegetable soup.

Returning to their service, they made the soup, adding vegetables from the service garden, before donating the soup to Fred’s Van, a mobile meal service which supports those experiencing poverty and/or homelessness. It operates at eight sites across Adelaide, including the CBD and Kilburn.

“Making the soup and donating it to Fred’s Van was just so meaningful for the Purple Room boys and girls,” Mrs McGinty said. “They just got it.”

Speaking about the experience Purple Room student Luca said “we helped people, and it made our hearts happy.” The donation was welcomed by Teresa Branch, Co-ordinator of Fred’s Van, who called in to the ELC to collect the soup.

“The young students were so lovely and enthusiastic. It was … quite an amazing effort and achievement,” Ms Branch said.

“The soup was used on our City Fred’s Van on Saturday night and we took that out with other items of food, including hot sausages, sandwiches, fruit and drinks. We served 60 people on that cold night, and the soup was really appreciated.”