Blanketed in community spirit

Two community-minded students from Point Cook Senior Secondary College have organised a project to help people sleeping rough.
Year 10 students Vijay and Haytham came up with the idea of holding a blanket drive earlier this year, to collect donations of used blankets for homeless people.
Point Cook Senior Secondary College teacher Fabiola Sierra said the two boys developed their blanket drive project proposal during a humanities class, in which students learn about community, leadership and entrepreneurial skills.
Haytham said that although he and Vijay brainstormed “lots and lots of community projects we could do to help the people in need”, the issue of homeless people stood out.
“Our goal was to provide something to homeless people that with assist them,” he said.
“We realised that most of the homeless people had blankets that are old and had holes in them and was less effective during winter.”
Vijay said that after he and Haytham developed their proposal, he contacted the Point Cook Town Centre’s management team to ask if they could place a box, for donations of blankets to be placed in, within the mall area.
He and Haytham also placed a box at the college, and put up posters around the school and town centre to raise awareness of their project.
The boys said they would take the donated blankets into Melbourne next month, to distribute to homeless people.