Bedales Junior Schools raise over £12,500 for Whizz Kidz

Bedales Junior Schools raise over £12,500 for Whizz Kidz

15/07/2011

Bedales Junior School Dunhurst and pre-prep Dunannie have raised a grand total of £12,537.50 for disabled children’s charity Whizz Kidz. The charity helps children with disabilities to lead a mobile and active life just like any other child through the provision of wheelchairs and lessons on how to manoeuvre wheelchairs so that they can enjoy life to the full. There are currently 13 children in Hampshire waiting for a wheelchair and the money raised by Dunhurst and Dunannie will contribute towards helping these local children become more mobile.

Whizz Kidz South-East representative, Sophie Egan, was delighted to receive a cheque from Dunannie for £7,650. The pupils had raised most of the money over the Easter holidays through doing jobs at home for their families including gardening, dog-walking and even poop-scooping! Later on in the term a fun run, plant sale and craft and cake sale all helped to achieve this grand total along with a little help from Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson who donated a signed bottle of House of Lords champagne, which achieved £400.

The children were delighted to hear from Sophie that thanks to all their efforts, along with the support of parents and staff, Whizz Kidz will use the money to buy a powered wheelchair for a child in Hampshire. The powered wheelchair enables the child to be more independent so they don’t have to ask their parents for help every time they want to get something that would not normally be within their reach, such as lifting a book from a high shelf. The wheelchair operates like a platform and can go up and down at the press of a button.

Dunhurst children managed to raise £4,887.50 for Whizz Kidz thanks largely to a sponsored swim that took place earlier in the term and individual efforts by children who organised their own fundraising initiatives. Sophie Egan told the children that this money would buy a child in Hampshire a manual wheel chair plus lessons on how to use it, from learning how to do wheelies and whizz round obstacle courses to road safety.

On the day of the presentation to Whizz Kidz, Dunhurst also made presentations to the school’s charity Miraflor, which helps children in Nicaragua to receive a better education, championed by teacher Louise Banks. They managed to raise a further £2000 for this charity thanks to the swimathon.

Dunhurst PE teacher Ryan Walsh also received a cheque for £1500 as a further boost to his fundraising campaign, which started when he ran in the London Marathon earlier this year for charity CCHF All About Kids. The charity gives disadvantaged children aged 7-11 a range of residential activity and respite breaks, many of the children come from backgrounds including poverty, isolation, neglect and abuse, some are young carers or a sibling or parent and some have suffered from bereavement or family breakdown.

Jo Webbern, Head of Dunannie said: “The children cheered with delight when they heard they had raised enough money to buy a disabled child in Hampshire a powered wheelchair. Earlier on in the term they saw a video of how much powered wheelchairs improve a child’s quality of life and so to learn that their efforts had made this possible for another child was very exciting for them. It was lovely to be able to present Sophie from Whizz Kidz with the cheque and explain to her how the children had all contributed to the grand total.”

Dunhurst Deputy Head, Alan Simmons, said: "Over 190 Dunhurstian children aged between 8 and 13 participated in our sponsored swim, completing up to a maximum of 30 lengths of the school pool. This was a fantastic accomplishment in itself with a good number of the children gaining a wonderful sense of achievement and pride by swimming further than they thought possible. We raised a fantastic total of £7,500 from the swimathon alone. The funding from the swim allowed us to provide, through WhizzKidz, a custom built wheelchair for a child living in Hampshire, as well as making significant donations to our Miraflor project and the charity ‘All About Kids’.  In addition, our HOPIT committee (Helping Other People In Trouble) organised a variety of other initiatives which raised a further £2,500, allowing us to donate a grand total of £10,000 to a number of charities this academic year.
An ethical thread runs throughout Dunhurst and so fundraising and supporting others beyond the school community is very much a part of our ethos. Our children learn about others who need help and develop skills in teamwork and achieving shared goals during the fund-raising process. I am very proud of their efforts and it is wonderful to witness their compassion for other children and their drive to do what they can to help."

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