Hampshire: Lymington Mini Vinnies

Lymington Mini Vinnies

Children at Our Lady and St Joseph Primary School in Lymington, Hampshire, on the edge of the New Forest, have become the first in the South of England to start up a Mini Vinnies group to do good deeds and have fun at the same time.

Mini Vinnies, an initiative of the St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP), provides primary school-aged children with a way to put their faith into practice. They meet once a week and run various activities to help raise money for charity and help their community. This is the first Christmas for the Lymington group and they have been very busy being creative.

Cathy Pickles, a catechist who runs the local Mini Vinnies group, is enthusiastic about what the initiative offers young people. Cathy said: “Spirituality is very important, as is awareness of need. We try to do something practical to help others, but where this isn’t possible we can offer it up in prayer.”

The Mini Vinnies programme helps kids learn about people in need and ways to help them. So far the pupils have taken the Smarties challenge, collecting 20p coins in empty Smarties tubes for charity, and have run a stall at their school fair where they baked biscuits and took donations from budding biscuit decorators. The kids have also been busy making Christmas cards for the Friendship Club at their local church and will accompany Club members to school to watch the Nativity play.

The Mini Vinnies initiative is a great way to get children thinking of how to help others near and far. Cathy recounts a story where she asked the children what they had done that week to help someone. One little girl responded that she had helped a reception child get ready for PE class.
She says that the “starter pack” provided by SVP National Office is an invaluable resource in setting up a Mini Vinnies group in a new school. There are also three Youth Development Officers in Portsmouth who are on hand to help anyone wanting to set up a group in their school.

Cathy plans, with help from parents, to arrange trips for the Mini Vinnies to visit the sick, and older people in residential homes

For more information on the St Vincent de Paul Society, see: http://svp.org.uk