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Students Pay It Forward

With support from Community Bank Buninyong, Year 9 students at Mount Clear College delivered another powerful year of community service through their 2025 Pay It Forward – Community Impact Explorers program.


This annual initiative gave every Year 9 class a chance to take part in real-world volunteering helping them build community connections and develop empathy, teamwork and social awareness.



The numbers tell a compelling story:


💪 Over 400 hours of off-site volunteering completed

🌱 Tree planting for a regional wildlife corridor

🧹 Rubbish clean-ups across local parks and nature areas

🦘 Conservation work with Ballarat Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation Inc. (BWRAC)

💧 Support for Food is Free Inc. and their community green space

💤 Participating in a homelessness awareness sleep-out and donating to the Soup Bus


The feedback from the community has been overwhelming. One project partner Merrie Harvey, summed it up beautifully:

“Could you please let the Year 9 co-ordinator and the Principal know what a fabulous bunch of young people they have at the school. They were polite, fun, interested and they worked like crazy. They’re true ambassadors of Mount Clear College. 97 plants in the ground, a mountain of weeding and mulching... we loved having them with us.”

The program has also had measurable internal impact.



According to the College, students have shown increased school attendance, stronger emotional connections and improved results on attitude-to-school surveys.


With local partner organisations already asking to host students again in 2026, the future is bright for this homegrown social impact program.


We’re doing good things together. To find out how visit www.communitygrowshere.com.au 🌏, call our branch locally in Buninyong on (03) 5341 8066 or email 📧 buninyongmailbox@bendigoadelaide.com.au




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