Community Council Updates – February 2018
by Arthur Liu (DP1B) and Kristy Chan (S4R)
Progress: something that can be hard to achieve within a council that already works tirelessly throughout the school year. As such, the two of us as Co-Presidents of the Community Council, have been left in a conundrum since the summer holidays, thinking, “What can WE do to improve upon our Council?”
The Community Council has made a quantum leap in progress in the last two years, holding countless donation drives; hosting the first ever joint-council event with the Athletic Council; establishing the Council’s hallmark ‘Vertical Marathon’ –‐ SISHK’s annual charity fundraising event which has raised close to HKD70,000 over the past two years – the list goes on and on.
We started the year off with our annual second-hand book sale. Students donated unwanted books and textbooks in the previous academic year which were then sold to students at sharply discounted prices. Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of the school community, we received close to 600 books. Most of the books were donated to the Crossroads Foundation to be redistributed to the needy. Shortly after, we brought students on a beach clean up. This was a real eye‐opener as many were unaware of the amount of rubbish on our shores. The Council also embarked on service trips with the Home of Love and the Crossroads Foundation, two organizations with which we have built relations with over the years and strongly support.
However, the real highlight of our year so far was our annual Vertical Marathon charity stair-climbing event that both students and teachers took part in. Participants pledged money to a charity of their choice and climbed stairs in school to show support for these various causes they are passionate about, and also ran stairs to earn house points for their respective houses. We doubled the turnout of the event and raised HKD15,000 more than the previous year, giving us a total of 150 participants with a grand sum of HKD50,146 raised. Most importantly, however, was that students found the event fun and enjoyable, just as charity and service work should be!
With less than half a year to make our mark on the school, the two of us still have a few tricks up our sleeves. For one, we aim to continue broadening the perspectives of our fellow schoolmates by taking them out on fun service trips and teaching them how they can do service work independently in the future, and to continue serving the school, attempting to make it a better place than we found it at the start of the year and to inspire our peers to do so alongside us.
