Charity Committee Update

Category: Charity, Co-operation, News, School

Since September 2022, the Charity Committee has supported many charities, including Macmillan and the Mustard Tree, and we hope to support lots more over the course of this year. Currently, we are holding a clothing drive to support Care 4 Calais, which is helping refugees, and we held a bake sale on February 2nd to support the economic crisis in Sri Lanka.

Our first event this year was the Macmillan Coffee Morning bake sale, which was supporting Macmillan (a charity which supports those who are affected by cancer) and raised £285! This was a very busy and successful event, especially because it was our first one of the year.

We then supported the Mustard Tree with our annual Harvest collection, where we everyone donated food which was given to the Mustard Tree in Manchester, a food bank and charity which supports those who are homeless and is working to combat the cost- of-living crisis. The Charity Committee collected around one thousand food items! For this collection, we also had parents donate via ParentPay, which raised a whopping £246!

Our next (and definitely not our last) bake sale was held in November to support BBC Children in Need (a charity which funds other, smaller charities which help children). To support this cause, we also had a yellow accessories day. In total, we raised £1032.88.

During December, we hosted two events: Christmas Jumper Day and Charity Day (possibly one of the biggest events of the school year). As usual, we supported CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young). This charity raises awareness about the condition, supports families affected by it and provides screening and research. The Charity Committee worked with School Council to organise Christmas Jumper Day, so everybody who wore a Christmas jumper donated £1. Charity Day brought two of the most beloved traditions of AGGS – the pantomime (written and performed by Y13) and the Talent show (which the Charity Committee organised). This year, we had lots of amazing performers, including a magician and a jazz ballet dancer. Years 8-11 organised small stalls, where all profits went towards CRY. Year 7 ran the Café in the library, selling food such as crisps, chocolate and fizzy drinks- again, all profits went to CRY. December events raised an amazing £1797.40!

Currently, we are supporting Care4Calais, which aims to aid refugees in Calais, and helps refugees in the UK access legal support. Our Charity Committee Student leader, Ayla, volunteers with this charity and often gives assemblies to raise awareness for this cause. We have organised a clothing drive to collect clothes which can be given to asylum-seekers who arrive in the UK, which has been received with fantastic support from everyone in school. We also had a wear-what-you-want day, where people donated money in order to wear their own clothes. As of now, we don’t have a total of how much money has been raised, or how many pieces of clothing have been donated, but we would still like to thank everyone for their continued support.

On February 2nd, we held another bake sale in order to raise money to aid the Sri Lankan economic crisis. Lots of cakes and doughnuts were donated, which all looked amazing!

Our next event will be Red Nose Day on Friday 17th March, where everyone will have the option to wear red accessories. Two weeks after this, we are planning a wear pink accessories day for Prevent Breast Cancer. Finally, on Monday 5th June, we will be celebrating World Environment Day with School Council. Although we will probably have more events going on this year, they have not yet been planned, so stay tuned!

The Charity Committee would like to thank everyone in school for supporting all of these brilliant causes – if any of these charities interests you, give them a quick search and find out how you can help!

Written by Charley – AGGS Media Team