Visit to Loaves and Fishes

A group of the St. Joseph Vinnies had the opportunity to visit Loaves and Fishes during Term One. This community service assists people in need in the community by providing meals several times per week. The St. Joseph Vinnies cam away feeling so inspired by the work done by this community organisation that it has since organised a large hamper of kitchen goods which they have been raffling off to raise funds in order to purchase donations of food for Loaves and Fishes. This raffle will be drawn early in Term Two.

Artwork to Celebrate Mental Health

The St. Joseph Vinnies during Term 1 were invited by the Community Services Centre in Halifax Street to create artwork for the upstairs meeting room where a lot of the community services hold their meetings. The theme of this artwork is based around the themes of the Winning Ways to Well-Being which are Connect, Give, Take Notice, Learn, Be Active and Community. As you can see from the photos the artwork that the Vinnies are coming up with around this theme is just fantabulous! We have been fortunate to have local artist, Pammie Moonlight, working with us on this project. We also had Susan O'Connell from Spporting Families (SF) Nelson and Hilary Ganet who is the Health Promoter for the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board launch this project with the Vinnies in a session they ran around this theme. The finished artwork will not only brighten the walls of the Community Services Centre upstairs meeting room but there are also plans for it to be used in an exhibition to promote Mental Health Week later in the year.

Vinnies on Display!

      During Term Three, the St. Joseph Vinnies took part in the Great Vinnies Pen-pal Exchange which saw Vinnies from around the country, create posters to send on to Vinnies groups in other areas as to what they have been doing throughout the year. The St. Joseph Vinnies created the fantastic posters below which talked about their activites delivering Meals-on-Wheels; creating screenprinted t.shirts for orphans at Fr Ray's Childrens Village in Thailand; knitting peggy squares to be made in to blankets; making polar fleece beanies for children in Christchurch as well as beanies and puppets for disabled and traunatised children over in Azerbaijan. The posters will now be sent up to Auckland to be put on the new national Vinnies website that is about to be launched. Definitely stay tuned!

Pen Pals

Lighting up Lives

   At the end of Term 3, the St. Joseph Vinnies did a wonderful job of lighting up the lives of the Meals-on-wheels recipents that they visit each week by creating a gift for each of them.  Knowing just how much their Meals-on-Wheels recipients love a good cup of tea or coffee and a chat, the Vinnies used this theme to create a candle in a tea cup. Although the cups may not be used for their tea or coffee for a while, the tea bags that came in the cards that the Vinnies made, no doubt will be.
   It may have been absolutely pouring with rain the day we delivered our tea cups but on the inside- the feeling was warm in more ways than one!

  

A Visit from IDEA Services

   On Monday 12 September the St. Joseph Vinnies had the opportunity of having IDEA services come to visit them. People at IDEA Services have also been learning to knit and crochet - the finished result of their work going towards decorating Nelson for the Rugby World Cup. This project which began at IDEA services has grown to involve a huge variety of people in the community. Although it has had positive benefits for people involved, it has also created some controversy with other people in the community believing that the knitting and crocheting needed to go to other causes. For the Vinnies it was a great follow-on to the interest in knitting developed through creating peggy squares; it allowed them to hear both sides of the story and gave them the opportunity to see just what people with disabilities are able to achieve.

The St. Joseph Vinnies in Stitches!

   The St. Joseph Vinnies started off Term 3 by finishing off their peggy-square creations. The peggy-squares knitted by the Vinnies went towards a Victory Community project of making blankets for people in need. With a large influx of peggy squares coming in - knitted not only by the Vinnies but also other wonderful parishioners, there will be lots of nice warm blankets produced to assist people over Winter months. Since our peggy-square project a number of the Vinnies have continued with their knitting efforts and have also made scarves, bags and kush balls. It's great to see their wonderful creativity coming out!