Mini Vinnies
Mini Vinnies- Society of St Vincent de Paul
'Mini Vinnies' are children in Year 4 and above who, with the permission of their parents and the support of their School, are encouraged to embark on their first steps as possible 'Vincentians for life'.
Those wishing to become a Mini Vinnie are invited to apply in school and state how they would carry out good deeds in the community.
Mini Vinnies is about doing good works in the community. The Vinnies model of ‘See, Think, Do’ is a great way to get young people thinking and talking about their spirituality; by connecting their beliefs and values with service activities and issues in their community, they can help to make their faith real, meaningful and relevant.
‘Our Mini Vinnies’ group will meet regularly during lunchtime and are always busy planning on how they can reach out to the people in need in our community. Over the past few years our dedicated Mini Vinnies have organised different fundraising events to raise money for The Good Shepherd Appeal during Lent and have collected Food for the Leeds Food Bank. We also help the staff in improving things in our school and have helped in planning and setting up the school Prayer Garden.
You can learn more about what we do and how Mini Vinnies began by looking at the website…
http://www.minivinnies.org.uk/
Minnie Vinnies
As a school, we are very lucky to have so many children who wish to volunteer to help the community.
Please say hello to our new Mini Vinnie team for 2025-26!
Mini Vinnie Commissioning Ceremony 2025
The Mini Vinnies, who were our team for 2024-25, led the commissioning celebration of the word to introduce our new Mini Vinnies and show them their mission of 'turning concern into action' - the Mini Vinnie Motto. They told our school about the work of the SVP and encouraged them to 'SEE, THINK, DO'. We look forward to seeing what our new Mini Vinnies will do to help carry out this mission.
Food bank collection - October 2025
As part of our Harvest mass this year, we asked our families to donate items to the food bank. As always, our families were very generous. The Mini Vinnies were in charge of collecting in this food and handing it over to the food bank for them to give to those families in need.
Parish SVP Christmas Lunch - December 2025
On the Sunday 14th December 2025 some of our Mini Vinnies went along to help with the Parish SVP Christmas lunch. This is an event that is organised by the main SVP society for the Parish and is an opportunity for those more vulnerable members of our community to get together to celebrate Christmas.
The children we wonderful as ever, the the Parish members loved having the children there to talk to, play games with and help with the serving!
Christmas cards for the community - December 2025
It has now become a bit of a tradition at St Joseph's for our children to make and deliver Christmas cards for our Parish members and local community. This year the Mini Vinnies were in charge of making these cards and giving them out at the Christmas masses. They also found time to make our Christingles for our Christingle service!
