26 June 2025

Seeking your preloved coats!

If you’ve stepped outside in the last few days, I’m sure you will have commented on the bitterly cold weather! Luckily, those of us at Carey all have our own blazers, jackets and coats to pull over and keep us protected against the Melbourne winter. This isn’t the case for everyone in our extended community though.

At the Founders Day Assembly this year, we heard from Carey alum and 2024 Carey Medallist, Toni Joel OAM (1982). A few years ago, on a freezing winter night like the one we had yesterday, Toni was walked past a man lying on a park bench, shivering in the cold. She felt compelled to take the coat off her back and give it to him. The following day, she started her charity, Off Your Back.

‘Imagine if everyone opened their wardrobes and took out the coats that we, or our kids, are not going to wear again, and put them into the hands of people who needed them,’ Toni says. The goal of Off Your Back is to enable people to give something they no longer need to someone who does. No money changes hands and there’s no complexities or overhead costs: just a community coming together to help one another.

Inspired by Toni’s story, Matteo and I were motivated to help. After the assembly, we approached her for her contact details and we have been in discussions since about how we can arrange a used-coat drive at Carey so our community can contribute to this initiative.

The opportunity also arose through the APS Captain’s Table, where we raised the coat drive idea as a simple, straight-forward, effective and impactful charity we can all come together to support. The APS wholeheartedly agreed, and all APS member schools will be running coat drives for Off Your Back – which means the competition is on!

The APS will award the APS Giving Cup to the school that donates the most coats – let’s make sure it’s us!

There are a number of drop-off points for your good-quality, preloved coats at our Kew and Donvale campuses:

Junior School – Donvale campus reception
Junior School – Kew campus reception
The Swap Shop in the Fairview Building
M106 in the Middle School building
Senior School reception.

‘For more than two decades, the Off Your Back winter coat drive has been a lifeline, ensuring warmth for those who need it most … The Off Your Back Winter Coat Drive, born from a single viral email, has blossomed into a movement that embraces school collections, company contributions, and the tireless efforts of individual volunteers. We are profoundly grateful for the generosity surrounding us, and, most importantly, for the warmth we can collectively provide to countless Victorians in need.’ – Toni,

Off Your Back

We have until 31 August to collect coats for the APS competition! I can’t wait to see how many people we can help with your kind donations.

If you would like any more information, please

contact Deputy Head of Senior School – Student Wellbeing, Christian Gregory

Genevieve Walters

School Captain

Feature image: tatianagorbunova, used with permission

26 June 2025

Seeking your preloved coats!

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