In December in the
spirit of Christmas, goodwill and giving back to our community, we raised money for 4 local charities that provide shelter, food and support to
homeless people.
At this time of year, these charities
are particularly important, helping to feed and provide shelter for those in
need. We would like to say a huge thank you to all members of staff who
participated and helped organise our Christmas appeal (especially those who
baked the delicious cakes on sale) and also to all of our fantastic students
who were so generous with their donations!
In our
London school we held
a Christmas raffle with the top prizes being a ticket to the musical Billy Elliot and a one-to-one English lesson
with our London Vice Principle Adam. We raised £224 for Shelter, a charity that campaigns to end
homelessness and bad housing in England and Scotland. It gives advice,
information and advocacy to people in need, and tackles the root causes of bad
housing by lobbying government and local authorities for new laws and policies
to improve the lives of homeless and badly housed people.
You can find out more about the amazing
work that they do through their YouTube channel.
At
Stafford House Brighton, we
held a bake sale, a raffle and a “guess the number of Skittles in the jar”
game. The students all joined in the fun and we raised £67.15 for The Clock Tower
Sanctuary, which
gives advice and support to young people in Brighton to help them transform
their lives. In addition, all teachers are going to teach a lesson on this
issue with information provided by our charity.
In
Canterbury we
raised £443.91 from our bake sale! Cakes were baked by 16 different members of
staff. There are several teachers who regularly bake cakes for their colleagues, so bake sales are a wonderful opportunity for our
staff to showcase their talent to the students, who love buying cakes from
their class teachers. There was a wide range on offer, from biscotti to an
enormous blueberry and cream cake. Although it was National Christmas Jumper
Day, the display of cakes managed to be more colourful than the jumpers! Staff
also contributed an extra £150 with a raffle at our Christmas party, giving a
grand total of £593.91!
The money has been donated to a local
charity Catching Lives that works with people in need to
end the harm caused by rough sleeping and insecure housing. Catching Lives
helps people who are homeless, young people, ex-offenders and individuals
affected by mental ill health or addiction.
Our Boston
school held a food drive in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Each core
class at Boston Academy of English was given a backpack to fill with
non-perishable goods to be donated to the Paulist Center. Students in teacher
Kristen Pechtol's class collected the largest number of non-perishable goods
and had their picture featured on the Boston Academy of English Facebook page.
Ultimately a donation of 13 backpacks full of food was made to
the Paulist Center with the help of student worker Sydney Nieves.
The Paulist Center, operating in Boston since 1957, also runs a homeless
shelter, a food pantry and holds a weekly Supper club on Wednesdays that
provides a free meal to anyone who comes to the Center. In January, as a part of
the school's activities program, students will volunteer at the Paulist
Center's supper club. Students participating in the activity will help to
prepare and distribute meals to the attendees of the Wednesday supper club,
providing meals for those who might otherwise not be able to get them. Working
with the Paulist Center is a part of our continuing effort to contribute
charitably to the Boston community at large.
Stafford House Team
