The Laudato Si is a letter from Pope Francis to everyone on the planet urging all of us to protect the earth; our common home. The earth is God’s gift to us, full of beauty and wonder, where the fruits of the earth belong to everyone. 

We do our best to look after God’s world and our fellow brothers and sisters. We work with the Missionary Brothers of Charity on the allotment to grow vegetables which are cooked in meals for the homeless people of Manchester.

Our annual ‘Lenterprise’ initiative raises money that we donate to CARITAS and the Lalley Centre. Each class competes to raise the most money for charity by running an enterprise at play times. We link this to the CARITAS in Action unit of work called ‘Solidarity and the Common Good’ .

We work in partnership with the Lalley Centre and our annual harvest donations are well received and termly fundraising is donated to help support the families in our local area.

We have also started to work towards gaining the Live Simply award, which is an opportunity for St Malachy’s to respond to Pope Francis’ invitation in Laudato Si’ to “work with generosity and tenderness in protecting this world which God has entrusted to us”. Here are some of the things we already do and some we plan to do to further strengthen our work with ‘Living Simply’

– Children order their school meals in order to reduce food waste.

– Create and use our outdoor spaces for prayer and reflection.

– Hold a walk, vigil or reflection to reflect on creation.

– Print double-sided to save paper.

– Hold an outdoor service – This happens regularly in our playground and forest school.

– Allocate time for silent reflection before Mass – We do this before Prayer and Liturgy and children already sit and reflect quietly before church services. 

– Email copies of newsletters and Wednesday Word instead of printing.

– Support or set up a second-hand school uniform exchange.

– Turn off lights, computers and photocopiers when not in use

– Create and use the allotments to grow vegetables.

– Organise litter picking walks.

– Create and run a ‘Gardening Club’.

– Set up a ‘Mini Vinnies’ group.

– Close windows, curtains and doors to keep heat in.

– Have a weekly meat-free day.

– Recycling 100% of our school’s food waste.