Young fundraisers from an Ingleby Barwick school have donated hundreds of pounds to a local therapy centre after taking on a host of world records.
Earlier this year, a team from Ingleby Mill Primary School took part in Newcastle Building Society’s Boardroom Charity Challenge, a financial education programme which asks young participants from across the region to develop business ideas that focus on benefiting their local community while also making a profit.
The Year Five pupils came up with the idea of holding a ‘Record Makers, Record Breakers’ event to raise money for the Trinity Holistic Centre, which is based at the James Cook Hospital and provides holistic therapies and counselling to patients who are either suffering or recovering from cancer.
Although they didn’t win the challenge, the Ingleby Mill team, which was made up of Finley Blackburn, Eva Farndale, Abigail Thompson, Kayden Robinson, Chloe Dillon and Heya Sami decided to put on their event as part of the school’s summer fair, and Newcastle Building Society made a £100 donation to help them make it happen.
They set up and ran everything themselves, coming up with a number of ideas for different world records that visitors to the fair could pay to try to break, including building the world’s tallest toilet roll tower, putting on the most T-shirts in one minute and beating the fastest time for assembling a Mr Potato Head toy.
Their efforts helped the pupils raise £500, which they’ve now passed on during a visit to the Centre to find out more about its work.
Ingleby Mill Primary School teacher, Glenn Carter says: “Our former assistant head teacher had to retire on health grounds and is currently using the Trinity Holistic Centre herself, which gave the children an excellent reason to raise money for it.
“They came up with a range of fundraising ideas for the competition, and when we decided the record breakers event would be the one that was likely to raise the most money, they worked really hard to put everything together themselves.
“We had lots of enthusiastic would-be record breakers trying to meet the challenges the children set them, and while we didn’t have anyone getting their name into the record books, they all had a lot of fun trying.
“Taking part in the Boardroom Charity Challenge has helped the children learn a great deal about organisation and managing budgets, and we felt it was important for them to visit the Centre to see for themselves where the money they’d raised would be going.”
Stockton South MP Paul Williams, who helped to deliver the cheque, adds: “The children have done brilliantly to raise this money and, thought they didn’t break any records, they’re certainly setting the standard in terms of working together for their community.
“They’ve also chosen a great cause in the Trinity Holistic Centre, a place which offers important services for cancer sufferers and their families.”
“They’ve also chosen a great cause in the Trinity Holistic Centre, a place which offers important services for cancer sufferers and their families.”
Newcastle Building Society’s Boardroom Charity Challenge is an ongoing financial education programme developed to help young people learn about becoming more financially independent.
More than 2,000 young people from schools right across the region have so far taken part in the scheme, which forms part of a six-week long curriculum based learning package that teaches core numeracy and literacy skills, enables pupils to learn more about how to manage money and helps them develop their IT and presentation skills.
Helena Kalandra, assistant branch manager at the Society’s Yarm branch, adds: “Our Ingleby Mill team put in a great show in the boardroom, and to see them put their plans into action to support such a great local cause is really inspiring.
“We believe that it’s never too early to start learning about how to look after your money, and hope that the information we share through the Challenge encourages the young people taking part to begin to develop good habits that will last a lifetime.”