News

The most amazing year for Charity!

Penryn College raises thousands of pounds for Charity

Penryn College students have been helping to improve the futures of others while working hard towards their own. Since the school year started in September 2016 thousands of pounds have been raised for charity and many hours have been volunteered to some fantastic causes.

Fighting Polio

Penryn’s Polio fundraisers

Efforts kicked off in October as members of our Interact Club, a youth division of Penryn Rotary Club, assisted in creating a memory garden in aid of Purple4Polio. This campaign is designed to unite communities in a final push to eradicate polio. Students in the Interact Club did their part by selling crocus bulbs for the campaign and raised over £100 for the cause in their first two weeks! Further bulb sales and a raffle brought the total to £435. This money will be trebled by the Bill Gates Foundation, creating a significant amount going towards a worthy cause. Thanks to fundraising like this, the Polio virus is estimated to be completely eradicated by 2018! Something Penryn College students will be able to say they helped happen.

Support for so many

Other charities that have benefited from our generous students this academic year include MacMillan Cancer, The Literacy Box Trust, The ShoeBox Appeal and the Royal British Legion.

In November we sent off a car full of Christmas Shoeboxes, full of daily essentials to homeless and vulnerable families.

£140 was raised for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal during our Remembrance Week, which was finalized with a moving school Remembrance service.

The School Charity

But that’s not all. Every year it is the job of the Student Council to nominate charities they feel passionate about supporting. This is then put to a school-wide vote and Stanley’s Friends was chosen as the 2016/17 School Charity.

At 17 months old Stanley was diagnosed with Sanfilippo type A, a terminal and debilitating disease which only affects around 40 children in the UK. The result of this currently incurable disease is a breakdown of cells in the brain and nervous system, leading to the loss of abilities such as reading, writing, speaking and eating. Stanley’s parents set up a Facebook page to support his needs. They explained that there are periods of “intense hyperactivity during which time Stanley will sleep very little and need constant stimulation and ways of burning energy”. The money raised by Penryn College students will be used to make a sensory playground in the family garden, allowing Stanley to release energy in the safety of his own home.

Stanley and his Mum visited the senior prefects during their charity week.

So far, money has been raised through a wide variety of activities including a book sale in the Maths Department, the sale of a staff Christmas e-card and of course contributions to the donation pot (which remains on the reception desk throughout every school day). Christmas time brought out the community’s charitable side in a big way: donations of over £500 were collected during the school’s Christmas Concert and Community Christmas Party. In the same week the prefects held their annual charity week. They sold Christmas decorations, sent Candy Canes on behalf of their peers and held a non-uniform day among other activities.

Our Brilliant Charity Prefects

Amy and Caya have our charity prefects

Charity prefects Caya Murphy and Amy Cocksedge have taken the lead in organizing many of these events with the help of Penryn College’s team of senior prefects. Earlier in the year Amy spoke to the school’s Press Officer about December’s Charity Week. “It went really well. It took a lot of organizing but we were quite prepared. We started a lot earlier than previous years and came up with our main ideas before the summer holidays.”

Their final event as Charity Prefects was a Red Nose Day cake sale which raised £95.85 for Comic Relief. The idea was chosen by students “because baking can be therapeutic which should help with exam stress. So as well as raising money for charity it can be a relaxing activity and something tasty for students to eat!” – What a great idea!

Some of the fantastic cakes sold at the Red Nose Day cake sale.

Amy wrote to Comic Relief after the event:

“I decided to become a prefect as my Grandad has had cancer more than once, and I had it myself as a child, and I really want to help give back to the community for helping save us both, and Caya also became a prefect as she really wanted to help make a difference with all our fundraising.”

“As we dawn upon our GCSE’s we are about to give up our posts to the Year 10’s and we thought it would be nice to conclude our work with a great event for [Comic Relief]. Hopefully, this money will help improve someone’s quality of life”.

Amy offers some fantastic advice for the next charity team: “Get started early, and don’t hesitate to voice your ideas. It’s really worth getting your points across; just because someone doesn’t agree with your idea, doesn’t mean it isn’t a good one.”

In addition to the concerts and parties, Charity Week alone raised more than £1000 and became the most successful Penryn College charity week to date. The current total for Stanley’s Friends is an incredible £2031.80!

Former head teacher Marie Hunter received a card from little Stan the Man’s family, expressing their heartfelt thanks for all the support. They described our pupils as an “inspirational group of lovely young adults”.

Penryn College has raised an amazing £23,000 for charity in the last 21 years showing that we are a giving school that teaches kids to have charitable hearts.