St Dominics Newcastle Matrics making meaningful memories

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant communities have had to find new and innovative ways of keeping connected in a time of social distancing. During the course of 2020, to help Matrics around the country to create special memories, despite a disrupted school year, Curro Holdings held a special live virtual concert.

However, this year, the group arranged a travelling yearbook project, encouraging Curro Matrics to capture their memories and connect to other Curro schools.

Nine beautifully designed travelling boxes are making their way from one Curro school to the next during the period of May to June. Packed with memory-making aids including Polaroid cameras, film, blank sheets of paper and fun stationery—each group of Matric learners has the chance to create scrapbook-like pages for their school’s section of Curro’s digital yearbook.

Curro’s Corporate Services Executive, Marí Lategan emphasises, “Matric is such a special year – the final one in the school career – and we want to help our learners to acknowledge and enjoy that.” She further adds, “It’s especially tough during the pandemic, but we think this project is a lovely way of keeping connected, not just among the Matric learners here, but throughout the country.”

The theme for Curro in 2021 concept is #currONfire. Every Curro project and event links back to the defined FIRE acronym, which stands for being Fierce, to always Inspire, taking Responsibility, or to Empower.

The Matric project is called “Down the Rabbit Hole” and every box is whimsically packaged, referencing “a magical journey filled with discovery and possibilities.” Schools are divided into groups based on proximity and each has a turn with the box. They complete their pages, pop them back in the box, then write a message on a postcard for the next school in line (which that school gets to keep). The box is then collected by a courier and delivered to that school.

The St Dominics Newcastle Matric learners have recently received their ‘travelling yearbook’ project from Curro Holdings. As the first school in the Curro group to have received their box, the school’s matric group will now write a motivational message on a postcard to Meridian Newcastle.

Once all the schools have taken part, all the completed pages from each box will be delivered to Curro’s central marketing department for compilation – both as printed hard copies and electronic files. The pages will be shared with all the schools involved, and turned into a chapter in the digital yearbook, which schools can also choose to print, should they wish to do so.

At the end of the project, there will be a lucky draw and nine of the schools that have taken part will have an opportunity to win a polaroid Instax camera. Lategan says, “It’s a lovely way to help our Matric learners to create a memento of this period in their lives, and we hope will be something they treasure forever.”