Good Shepherd

For many years now, one of the main strands of the work of the Catholic Children’s Society (Plymouth) has been our Good Shepherd programme. This is where we ask children to think of other children less fortunate than themselves. We believe that this is one of the most caring things they can do and encourages them to act within the principles of Catholic social teaching.

Each year, we ask our schools to join in and support our Good Shepherd programme, with some of the recent themes being ‘Sleep on the Floor for a Night’, ‘Caps for Cash, ‘Walk a Mile in their Shoes’ and last year, our BenevoLENT initiative.

Thank you to every school who has supported us over the years – your support means so much to our trustees and staff but also to the families we support.

This year, instead of asking schools to join in a set theme, we are asking schools to work with their Gift Chaplains, Mini Vinnies or whatever your group of Year 6 pupils are called, to come up with your own ideas to help raise funds to support the work of our small children’s charity. We rely entirely on the generosity of our loyal supporters, parishes and schools, to enable us to continue supporting the most vulnerable families through our Essential Grants programme – families of all faiths and none, living anywhere within our Diocese.

We have recently received this feedback from one of our schools –
“I cannot tell you how appreciative she was for this secondary school uniform. You really are making changes to people’s lives.”

If you would like to get involved next year, and we already have two schools lined up in September, we could pop along to meet your Gift Chaplains to explain a little about what we do and how we help children by buying beds for them to sleep in, school uniform and even cookers, fridge/freezers and washing machines to help the whole family. During this meeting, we could start to think about fundraising ideas that they feel passionate about, and this will help them in their quest to think about their communities.