Bags of goodwill for Vincent’s campaign

13 Jun 2013

By Matthew Biddle

Little champion of charity, Vincent Pettinicchio, and his mother, Pina, with goods Vincent asked people to donate for Perth’s homeless. PHOTO: JOAN D’VORAK

Vincent Pettinicchio’s bold campaign to provide packs of essentials to the homeless people in Perth has finished, with the eight-year-old collecting almost 200 packs.

With the help of family, friends and local parishioners, the Whitford Catholic Primary School student packed individual bags of the goods on May 31.

Children of all ages and from several different schools helped Vincent to put together a total of 185 packs.

The packs contained a blanket, towel, pillow, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, a hairbrush, shaving equipment, shampoo and conditioner.

Vincent included a short note with each pack that read: “Just to let you know that someone cares.”

The St Vincent de Paul Society collected the packs from the school hall on June 5, and plans to distribute them in the coming weeks.

Vincent’s mum Pina said the Year 3 student was grateful for all the support he received and was amazed at the final result.

“Vincent is now writing thank you notes to many people … to thank everyone for helping [him] achieve his goal of helping those less fortunate than us,” she said.

“We just wanted him to see that all initiatives and ideas can be achieved, and that there are many people who are willing to help.”

Our Lady of the Mission parish priest Fr Joseph Tran said he was extremely proud of his young parishioner’s achievement.

“It was an amazing project,” he said.

“To see a young person have the passion to look out for and reach out to the wider community is fantastic.”

Fr Tran said he was so impressed by Vincent’s project that he asked him to explain to the congregation at Mass one Sunday “how to be Christ-like to others in a practical way.”