Sale College Year 11 and 12 VCAL students raised almost $2500 for A Better Life For Foster Kids.
The effort was part of students’ Personal Development Skills (PDS) class, and saw them present A Better Life For Foster Kids founder Heather Baird with a cheque at the Macalister Campus on Monday.
Ethan Rye and Isaac Jones, Year 12 students, together with teacher Jaynee Hopgood, addressed students and teachers at Sale College Library, highlighting the trivia night and night market fundraisers hosted throughout the year before handing over the cheque to Ms Baird.
“In our PDS class, which is personal development, we organised a fundraiser,” Ethan said.
“We had to pick someone to give the money to; as we looked around, we thought we should give the money to A Better Life For Foster Kids because there are a lot of foster people in our school.”
After locking in A Better Life For Foster Kids as their fundraising recipients, the class began organising events with the help and support of their teachers.
“We wanted to do bingo originally, and we couldn’t do that because it’s classified as gambling, and then we decided to do trivia,” Ethan explained.
“We had to get that all organised; we put out sponsorships, went around to local businesses, and they donated us some nice prizes for a raffle.”
Around 50 people attended the trivia night, hosted in the Sale College Library a few months ago, with Geddes Meats, Amcal, Intersport Sale and Italdea Food Group among the local business that donated to the cause.
“We also had a sausage sizzle, and a lot of the butchers donated 50 sausages which was really nice, and Bakers Delight donated the bread,” Ethan added.
“There was also a market that we did,” Isaac said.
“We went into the woodwork shop, and we decided what we wanted to make and made it in there; some of us went up to the third story and started doing stuff in a spare room, and then we went to market and sold pretty much everything.”
Ethan and Isaac handed Ms Baird, joined by volunteers Yvonne Baird and Pat McDiarmid, the bright orange note with the number $2469.46 stained in black ink; the total amount raised.
“This is an amazing effort,” Ms Baird said as she received the donation.
“The trivia night was fantastic; I can’t believe you have raised this much money; it means so much.”
According to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data, the number of children in out-of-home care has increased by 14 per cent in Victoria since 2018, with 12,809 children in out-of-home care as of June 30, 2021.
Out-of-home care incorporates residential, kinship and foster care.
Having been raised in the foster care system from two-and-a-half years old until she turned 18, Ms Baird’s fight to better the lives of foster kids is one with a significant personal driving force.
“The system is so broken”, Ms Baird said, “it’s only gotten worse”.
“One in four kids in out-of-home care will end up drug addicts, alcoholics, in jail or dead.
“This is the generation that is going to change the system, our time is done, but this is the generation that will.”
Donations will provide Christmas presents, crisis cases and financial support for common childhood activities to children in out-of-home-care.
“More importantly, there is the awareness side of it,” Ms Baird said.
“The more awareness you get, the more you get people asking why and what is wrong with it, which then opens up the chance to explain what is wrong with it.”
Ethan and Issac found the reality that out-of-home care children face confronting, and were proud to provide what they could.
“[The most confronting thing I’ve learnt] is just how many kids suffer and just need help,” Ethan said.
Ethan and Issac hope they have inspired future Sale College students to help those in need, and both plan to continue fundraising for the out-of-home care system as they embark on their next stage of life.
