Christmas carols have rang through the halls of St Joseph’s School on the evening of Friday, 28 November, in an effort to raise donations for a Community Gifting Tree.
The festive celebration brought together the Clare Valley Concert Band, Impromptu Choir, Clare Valley Christian Outreach (CVCO) and Lions Clare Christmas Committee.
Mid North Lutheran Ministries Pastor Greg Vangsness led the evening as the Master of Ceremonies and earned crowd laughs for his festive inspired dad jokes throughout the night.
The choir and band gave the audience a collection of Christmas favourites to sing along with, which saw the likes of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Silent Night among them.
Organised by Leonie Moore, Clare Valley’s award winner for Active Citizenship 2025, Ms Moore described the event as an ecumenical evening.
“We’re hoping that it will enable the CVCO to make up lots of hampers for people who need it because we want everybody to have a special time at Christmas,” she said.
“We had two anglican priests in the choir and we had a retiring lutheran priest doing the MC and we moved to the catholic school so I think it’s great.”
The night saw the official lighting of Clare’s gifting tree by Member for Frome, Penny Pratt MP.
“The least we can do is support our singers and musicians and keep encouraging them to perform and what better occasion than to kick off Christmas with a special carols night like this,” Ms Pratt said.
“To play a small part, to be the person who flicks the light is really special but I hope what it signals is a reminder to everyone in our community who can be generous to gift something for those Christmas hampers.”
Donations from the evening will be distributed into hampers as a gift to members of the community in need with the event set to return next Christmas.
