Students at St Eugene College in Burpengary raised more than $8,000 for Caritas Australia’s Project Compassion this Easter, living out the legacy of their patron saint through a season of fundraising, community action and a conviction that small, shared gestures can change lives for people doing it tough.
For families in Burpengary and across the Caboolture corridor who know St Eugene College as the local Catholic secondary school, the result is more than a fundraising figure. It is a demonstration of what the school’s community actually looks like when it puts its values into action.
Carrying the Mission of a Patron Saint
St Eugene de Mazenod, the French bishop who founded the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the early nineteenth century, built his life around reaching people who had been forgotten by society. His mission was charity in the most literal sense: going out to those at the margins rather than waiting for them to arrive at the door.
St Eugene College draws its name and spirit from St Eugene de Mazenod, a French bishop who dedicated his life to those on the outer. This Easter, students brought that legacy into the present day. Rather than waiting for a call to help, the college community reached out, grounding their fundraising in the belief that belonging means looking after our global family.
Their fundraising for Project Compassion, Caritas Australia’s annual Lenten appeal, channelled that spirit directly. Project Compassion supports some of the world’s most vulnerable communities through long-term development programs across more than 100 countries. Every dollar raised by St Eugene College students this Easter connects to that work.
More Than $8,000 and the Meaning Behind It
The fundraising total of more than $8,000 reflects the kind of effort that requires genuine buy-in from students across year levels, not just a single event or a token collection tin. House initiatives spread the responsibility and the energy across the whole college, while whole-school events brought the community together around shared purpose.
The college’s aim was clear: to demonstrate that small actions, taken collectively, carry real weight. That a group of students in Burpengary can raise more than $8,000 for people experiencing poverty on the other side of the world is precisely the kind of outcome the Easter season asks communities to strive toward.
St Eugene’s efforts mirror a broader wave of generosity across Brisbane Catholic Education schools. While St Ignatius in Toowong celebrated with a hat parade and donation drives, the Burpengary community focused on the power of the “shared gesture.” As St Ignatius principal Benedict Campbell noted, this season is an invitation to walk alongside others, a call the St Eugene students answered with one of the region’s strongest fundraising tallies.
The Easter Invitation to Look Outward
What St Eugene College has done this Easter is not unusual in the context of Catholic education, but it is worth naming. Secondary school students who might otherwise spend their final weeks of term focused entirely on assignments and sport chose instead to organise, fundraise and think about people whose lives look nothing like their own.
That orientation, outward rather than inward, is at the heart of what Easter calls communities to do. Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection are not a private story; they are an invitation to respond to suffering in the world with care, generosity and action. St Eugene College’s students took that invitation seriously.
A Community Worth Being Part Of
For Burpengary and Caboolture families with children at or approaching secondary school age, St Eugene College’s Easter effort is a window into what the school’s community culture looks like day to day. Schools that raise more than $8,000 for Caritas in a single term do not do so by accident. They do so because the values are embedded, the teachers model them and the students feel genuinely connected to something larger than themselves.
That is the kind of school community that forms more than just exam results.
More information about St Eugene College, Burpengary is available through the Brisbane Catholic Education website at bne.catholic.edu.au.
Published 8-April-2026
Featured Image Credit: St Eugene College/Facebook
CLICK ANY LOGO TO SEE PUBLICATION
