Our 18th Annual Catholic Schools Race Day, held on Saturday 11 March at Thabeban Park Race Course was a great success despite the conditions on the day being in vast contrast to last year’s sunny day with cooling breeze.

The rain on the days leading up to the event gave officials no option but to cancel the local races for the safety of the horses and jockeys. Despite this, in addition to the warm and humid conditions and occasional showers, it didn’t dampen the spirits of our capacity crowd of close to 330 patrons celebrating our Citrus Spritz theme.

Tickets were sold out again, this year three weeks before the event after being on sale for only 10 days.

The afternoon kicked off with the Fashions Parade hosted this year by the ladies from Sanshells Boutique Bargara and VoVos Boutique Bundaberg. The ladies put on a great show and were applauded loudly by the very appreciative crowd.

Everyone in our marquee who were dressed according to our theme were automatic entrants into our Annual Pam Hansen Fashion Awards and the winners were very happy to be rewarded for their special effort in glamouring up for the day.

The marquee’s atmosphere was also enhanced by the talented artists on the stage performing their versions of popular songs in the background throughout the day. This year we also welcomed the growing number of past students of Shalom using the event to reunite. The Class of ’93 celebrated their 30 Year Reunion on Deck which has become the location inside the Marquee for reunion groups.

Food and drinks were in plentiful supply. The fantastic team of volunteers from Shalom catering again prepared and served a tasty range of nibbly treats throughout the day. This team have been doing this for over ten years now and they always deliver the highest quality food with the added benefit of giving current Shalom students real life hospitality experience.

Dominos Pizza returned again this year generously donating 50 pizzas to compliment the range produced by the Shalom team. The volunteers behind the bar and selling drink tickets again did a fantastic job ensuring attendees were served their favourite thirst quencher in a speedy manner.

Another major feature of the day which is a great contributor to the money raised is our raffle. Over $5,000 in raffle prizes were donated by our generous sponsors and $3,940 worth of tickets were sold on the day. An enormous amount of work by members of our committee went into getting this pool of prizes together from the many extremely generous donors. Thanks also to students, parents and school staff who assisted in selling tickets on the day.

The money raised on the day of over $20,000, has enabled $7,000 to be distributed to each of our three Primary Schools and is in the process to being put to the following causes. St Joseph’s allocated their funds towards their Robotics Program for students. St Patrick’s funds are being used to purchase Aluminium Chairs for the students and finally St Mary’s is again going towards their Sacred Space.

As a committee, it is so wonderful to see the money raised going to such valuable causes, annually enhancing the education and experience of our young school students through their primary school years.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who was involved in the event - the committee, sponsors, volunteer teachers, staff, students and parents. This Annual Catholic Schools event is an enjoyable day on our calendar and we are already looking forward to next year’s event scheduled for Saturday 16 March 2024.