Raising Funds for World Challenge Expedition

On 13 July 2009, a group of eight Ackworth School pupils will be travelling to Namibia to help a community-based project. We will be teaching children from local schools and possible organising some sport activities and musical events. Part of the time will also be involved in construction work on an orphanage, which will include building, repainting etc. Part of the challenge for us is to raise the £3,600 each (a total of over £28,000) in order to fund the trip. We are all busy doing a variety of activities from bag-packing in supermarkets to selling Christmas cards. So far we have completed four bag-packs, raising £1,050. In addition, one of our customers, who got chatting to us as we packed her bags, has now offered to organise a coffee morning at her local church to raise more funds for us. We designed the Christmas cards, using photographs taken of our School in the snow by Mrs Rothwell, our retired Head of Art, who still lives in the village. We sold 5,000 cards to parents and friends and raised £2,000.

At the School Show this year, which was the popular musical Annie, we sold ice creams during the interval on each of the three evenings, raising a further £300, and at the same time took orders for Christmas wreaths and Christmas table decorations, which we planned to make using foliage from the School grounds. These, together with jars of autumn jelly and jam donated by our Home Economics teacher, raised a further £400.

Amongst future fund-raising events will be a meal at Ash’s Balti Restaurant in Ackworth, where we have negotiated a special price for a three-course meal and exclusive use of the restaurant. If we sell all the tickets we should make a further £500, and in March 2009 we are using the School Meeting House to host a concert in which international opera singers will be performing (The husband of our Geography Teacher, who will be accompanying us to Namibia, works for Opera North!). On a smaller scale there are plans also for a bun sale, taking orders for single roses with messages for Valentine’s Day, a School disco, car washing and collecting and selling unwanted mobile phones via the internet.

We really hope our work in Namibia will provide help where it is desperately needed.

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