Celebrating our OLSH community

Last Friday we celebrated our OLSH Feast Day Mission Carnival.

Feast Day is a day of laughter, love and fun, where we have lots and LOTS of food, rides, carnival games, and song. In the morning we celebrated our Feast Day Mass with the privilege of having the OLSH sisters come to us from around the world. Sr. Emma from the Philippines, Sr. Annabella from Tonga, Sr. Freda from Papua New Guinea and Sr Vita from Samoa joined us from their home countries, to join us in celebrating 150 years of the OLSH sisters and foundation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

The Mass was beautiful, as we had a chanced to acknowledge all the work of the OLSH sisters and understand the beautiful story of Marie Louise Hartzer, a significant voice in our school community.

Last week we also welcomed staff and students of OLSH Kensington, Sydney and OLSH Enfield, Adelaide to join us in celebrating the 150 years of the Sisters and participate in our Feast Day! They were welcomed with warmth and hospitality, enabling us to share our collective OLSH community spirit.

Then we commenced the day with many carnival games and stalls such as our buy swap and sell, spin the wheel, chocolate coin toss, tin knock 'em down, and face painting, where our 2023 School Captain Halle Schroor came to help out. It was so lovely to welcome her back for such a special day.

We all loved the rides (who doesn’t!) and especially the food (…once again…who doesn’t!)

We were fundraising for OLSH Overseas Aid for OLSH schools in the Philippines, Tonga, Samoa and Papua New Guinea where the Sisters are providing education to children and families in need. We surpassed our goal of $23,000 by raising a record breaking $26,000!

We are so proud of all our students, staff and families for being encouraged, enthusiastic and excited to participate, donate and get involved. We could not have passed our goal without the support of our loving OLSH community and thank everyone for their support and generosity.

Thank you again and lots of love from the Senior Executive,

Mia, Emilia, Chanelle and Alexandra
Student Executive

On the last day of Term 3, we planted our student garden. This garden was the idea of the Student Leaders, to represent their 2024 theme, Nurture the Seed, Grow and Succeed. The garden contains native plants which will create a sustainable, habitat area as it grows. Our Student Executive spoke about their vision for the theme and the garden and what it means to them as a representative from each Learning Mentor Group, the Leadership team, teaching and admin staff planted their plant. 

"Today marks the planting of our beautiful native ‘Grow your own plants’- our last initiative as a senior executive team for 2024. Our theme this year was Let it grow- with our college slogan, ‘Nurture the Seed, Grow and Succeed’. This year, our vision was to draw focus on our OLSH community- our strong foundation of heritage, spirituality, legacy and tradition. Our house patrons, OLSH sisters, past educators and alumni are all part of our rich College history; inspirations who spread their passion for education and shaped OLSH into the heart filled place that it is today. These are our roots; what grounds and reminds us of who we are." - Mia

"Our college radiates incredible warmth and support that provides the resources and opportunities to allow students to grow, just like the trunk of a tree. Our roots and trunk form the basis of who we are as OLSH girls, providing our lives with a sense of meaning, understanding and belonging. So, Nurture the seed: as a seed needs adequate water, nutrients and care to sprout, so do we as people. And ‘Grow and succeed!’: for a seed to flourish into a beautiful creation, it must use its roots." - Emilia

"This means that before we can achieve great things, we must use the wisdom of what has gone before us, learn from our mistakes, not allow fear to hold us back, embrace the journey ahead with hope and pursue our own path! Therefore, growing our plants in homeroom has been a physical embodiment of our college theme- our vision of flourishing from our planted seed and blossoming into the beautiful, unique individuals we all are! It provided us with a shared purpose and goal- where we could recognise the power of teamwork, collaboration, love and care." - Alexandra

"So today, we leave a symbol of our legacy and vision through leadership- and we hope that the planting of our natives’ marks both the end of the incredible growth we have achieved within 2024, yet also the beginning of new growth beyond! We hope that our OLSH community feels inspired and empowered- that you can achieve absolutely anything your heart desires, as long as you remain close to your roots, connected and true to yourself. We are so proud of you girls!" - Chanelle