CAFOD WorldGifts...
A Newcastle school raised more than £500 in a Christmas charity challenge in just three weeks.
Pupils from St Lawrence’s Primary School, in Headlam Street, Byker, decided to raise money to buy World Gifts (http://worldgifts.cafod.org.uk/) from the Catholic overseas aid agency CAFOD. In three weeks they raised £524.76 and bought 23 presents.
CAFOD Gifts advertised on their website
One pupil was saving up to buy a tamagotchi, but then found out her dad had already bought one for her, so she spent the money on ‘Worms for Composting’ for £12 from the collection.
Sharon Emerson’s daughter goes to St Lawrence’s and Sharon had the idea of setting the children a challenge to raise money for World Gifts during Advent. She prepared an assembly for all year groups and challenged them to come up with ideas to raise money to buy one or maybe two World Gifts. She copied the cheaper gifts in the World Gifts catalogue and left them to it.
Sharon was stunned with the way the classes took on her Advent challenge. She said: “It was fantastic! It’s exceeded all expectations. It’s floored me. When I did the assembly, I was quite nervous, but the children were very excited. I told them about some of the cheaper gifts, and the posters I got from CAFOD were photocopied for each class and the teachers put them up in each classroom.
“One teacher thought there might not be enough interest and that classes might have to share gifts, but we told the children that any contribution was fine, and then it just took off.”
Each class in the school devised their own way of raising money, and very quickly, the classes began attempting to outdo each other in their generosity. One class sold juice and biscuits at break time, another class had a sponsored spell, another had a ‘name the penguin’ competition and the infants offered toast for sale during break. St Lawrence pupils bought four water kits, four home starter kits, three sets of seeds and tools, three school starter packs and three lots of worms, as well as six other gifts.
Sharon said: “It was unbelievable. It really caught their imagination. Some of the children were coming in with sponsor forms with £20 or £30 worth of sponsors. And the teachers have really enjoyed it. What made it so special for the children was the excitement of knowing what they were actually buying.
“I’d just received the CAFOD Advent calendar and I could feel myself welling up when I could imagine what good the money would do. It all happened in just three weeks because we wanted to get the certificates by the close of term.”
The scheme is likely to become an annual event in the school, and word also got out to the local parish priest, who has asked Sharon to be CAFOD’s contact in the parish, and suggested the entire parish takes on World Gifts next year!
For more information, contact Sharon Emerson on 0191 224 0317 or Ged Naughton at CAFOD Hexham & Newcastle on 0773 808 8614.