STUDENTS and staff at St Finbarr’s School, Ashgrove, swapped their school uniforms for bright, colourful tops to support Loud Shirt Day.
Loud Shirt Day is a national fundraising initiative co-ordinated by First Voice, a national alliance of hearing service providers.
The fun, one-day event, held annually in October, raises money to help give the gift of sound and speech to deaf or hearing-impaired children like St Finbarr’s Prep student Cameron McPhee.
On the day students and staff wore brightly coloured, striped, floral, polka-dot and paisley shirts and T-shirts to raise more than $260 for the Hear and Say Centre at Auchenflower.
The Hear & Say Centre helps teach children who are deaf to listen and speak.
They provide family-centred early-intervention programs and support, with more than 90 per cent of graduates going on to enter mainstream schooling with their speech and language skills on par with their typically hearing classmates.
Principal Ann Hall said St Finbarr’s was keen to let students participate by “wearing their support”.
She said Cameron’s family was closely affiliated with the Auchenflower Hear & Say Centre, and the school community had embraced the cause and took the opportunity, for the cost of a gold-coin donation, to be involved.
Student Toby Everett, who wore his favourite Hawaiian shirt to school, said it was a great idea and it was great that they were helping support Cameron and other children with hearing difficulties.
“Everybody wore something colourful to school and it was fun seeing everybody dressed so brightly,” he said.
