By Alex Wainwright,
Primary School of Romero Catholic Academy, Coventry

School children from Coventry have raised thousands of pounds for charities which support those in need across the city.

The primary schools of the Romero Catholic Academy have presented £3,640 as well as items of clothing, food and toiletries to Coventry Cyrenians, YMCA Coventry and Warwickshire, Grub ‘n’ Gab, Coventry Jesus Centre and Walsgrave Baptist Church.

The school councils, which include Corpus Christi, Good Shepherd, Sacred Heart, St Gregory’s, St John Fisher, St Patrick’s and Ss Peter and Paul Catholic Primary Schools, were set a fundraising challenge after receiving training on how to turn ideas into projects at the start of the school year.

The children organised everything from bake off events and coffee mornings to movie nights and discos to raise the funds, and also co-ordinated appeals for donations.

A special event was held to present the money and goods to the charities and celebrate the hard work of the children. The pupils were also presented with awards by guest speaker Councillor Ram Lakha in recognition of their commitment, determination and success in completing the challenge.

Lisa Carroll, from YMCA Coventry and Warwickshire, said: ‘We’re really grateful to the Academy for their generous donation – we currently have nine children under the age of 10 living in our centres who would otherwise be homeless, so seeing schools help other local young people has a really nice synergy.

‘Making connections like this is crucial for us and going forward we will be visiting some of the schools across the Academy to educate the children about the support we provide to local young people.’

Pauline Finn, Vice Principal of St John Fisher Catholic Primary School, said: ‘It was excellent to come together and celebrate the achievements of our children from across the Academy.

‘Members of the school councils were given training where they learned about the importance of communication, presenting ideas and how to achieve more by working together.

‘They have since been working hard to put all of these skills into practice to fundraise for our chosen charities which all help the local community, particularly the homeless and those in need. They were tasked with being as imaginative as possible and came up with some brilliant ideas.

‘We would like to thank Councillor Ram Lakha as well as the charity representatives who came along to the celebration where we were able to present our donations and hear more about the fantastic work they are doing across the city.’