Helping the school community through rejuvenating the Sacred Space (a quiet area of the school that students can retreat to) was the outreach project that the St. Paul's Vinnies undertook this year with the assistance of students throughout the school.

From stuffing 1.5 litre plastic disposable bottles with non-biodegradable rubbish to coming up with the design for the earthbench and then creating this construction, students were involved at all levels of this project. Inspired by the Vinnies involvement in an earthbench project that took place in 2013 for a community garden that assists people in a lower-economic community in Nelson, this project gave students at St. Paul's first hand experience of how the principles of recycling and sustainability can be put to good use in meeting the needs of people in the community. It was a project that simply couldn't have taken place without the assistance of the Keep New Zealand Beautiful Coca-Cola Beverage Container Recycling programme that kindly gave us the grant needed to achieve this.

Our completed earthbench is only one of many that have been built throughout the world since the Peace On Earthbench Movement began in 2011. People can learn more about this global trend by going to www.earthbench.org.