Last year at Forge we asked our students what they wanted to do when it came to raising money and supporting charities. A number of scenarios were put to them and they made the decision to support the British Red Cross as their main charity because their work covers those affected by humanitarian crises such as wars, natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods and human trafficking.
We had members of the local Red Cross speak at our celebratory Prize Giving event at Champions Church where they talked about the great work they do, and years 7 – 10 had assemblies led by the Red Cross earlier in the year.
We will be holding an “own clothes day” (also known as a “mufti day”) at the end of the spring term as well as a number of other events throughout the year to support the Red Cross (look out for information about bake sales coming up very soon)
We also support our local food bank a couple of times a year when we hold “own clothes days” and ask students to bring in food (e.g. tins, dried food) and other important items such as toiletries as their contribution. We have been really blown away by the amount we have been able to send to the food bank on these occasions.
What does this mean for Red Nose Day and other national charity fund raising days?
We have made the decision to support the British Red Cross and our local food bank as our focus for Charity events for the next few years. This means that we won’t officially celebrate Red Nose Day in school, however we recognise that some students will want to do smaller events to celebrate Red Nose Day and we will support them in that. Of course, if students and parents want to contribute to the Red Nose Day collections then they can do so through the Red Nose Day text and online collections.