In early September, a presentation relaying food poverty statistics collected by Guernsey Welfare first sparked the girls’ interest in the topic.
They were asked to guess the location where the statistic had been collected, and were left shocked upon finding out the answer.
‘They didn’t think at all that it was here. So the shock when we said, “actually, this is Guernsey”. They were quite emotional to think that some children, perhaps their age, are hungry or go without,’ said their teacher Claire Cunningham.
The children were then taken to Mill Street Community Cafe, where they were given a talk about its charitable efforts towards relieving food poverty in the island.
‘Being in the cafe and seeing the volunteers, they could see how people in the community can make a change,’ said Mrs Cunningham.
Following their trip, the girls decided to develop their own food poverty fundraiser as part of their school’s ‘Changemakers Pathways’ initiative, which encourages pupils to select and develop projects based on causes that interest them.
‘The emphasis is on the girls being independent and following a path that they feel passionate about, rather than us telling them “we’re doing food poverty”. So, this project has been fully run by the girls,’ said Mrs Cunningham.
‘We had a brainstorming session to start, and then they split themselves into different teams. So, we had a campaign team, a sales team and a research team.’
The girls eventually agreed to do a food collection for the harvest festival, and then also a soft toy sale to raise money.
‘They brought in their own toys, they advertised for it, they delivered it, they were counting the money,’ said Mrs Cunningham.
They decided to give half of the food collected to Cheshire Home, and half to the Guernsey Welfare service, along with all the money raised from the toy sale.
Simon Fairclough, manager of Guernsey Welfare, came to the school to receive the cheque for £350.50 in person and also gave a talk to the girls about the work he and his team do, followed by a question and answer session.
However, the handover in no way marked the end of the children’s fundraising endeavours. They are continuing to bring in money from the toy sale via the outstanding IOUs they have yet to collect, and are also preparing to give a ‘MED’ talk at assembly about their project, the Melrose equivalent of a TED talk.
‘So, this project is not only about them being informed, but also sharing that knowledge and telling other people what they can do should they want to be involved,’ said Mrs Cunningham.
The girls are also planning to build on their food donations with a reverse advent calendar event over December.
‘They’re going to bring in an item of food each day,’ explained Mrs Cunningham.
‘So, hopefully we’ll have another lot to give to Mr Fairclough at Christmas.’
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