Schools' harvest focus on Africa (From Bucks Free Press)

Schools' harvest focus on Africa

10:30am Sunday 19th October 2008 in Search

CHILDREN at two south Bucks schools put a twist on their traditional harvest festivals by raising money for charity and donating cash to a school.

Pupils at Cedar Park School in Hazlemere raised more than £400 by selling homemade cakes and raffling off fruit and vegetable baskets at their festival.

Meanwhile, youngsters at Mary Towerton School in Studley Green, raided their piggybanks and parents' pockets to raise £90 for Seeds For Africa – a charity which helps children in the developing countries plant vegetable gardens and fruit tree orchards.

The money from Hazlemere pupils will also be winging its way to Africa to the Kumbaka School in Kenya, which Cedar Park has been partnered for more than three years.

Alastair Phillips, headteacher at the school in Cedar Avenue, said: “I thought it was a really great success. We had at least 200 parents here and we did it as a big community event.”

“When we’re looking at Kumbaka School, harvest for them is basically life and death.”

The fundraising efforts of Mary Towerton pupils will buy 16 trees for the communities in Africa, which they have studied during geography classes.

Sarah Leighton, headteacher at the school in Water End Road, said: “We initially aimed at raising money for one fruit tree, which is £5. For the length of the time we were studying Africa they were collecting those pennies. They raided parents' pockets and piggybanks. It became a family thing.”

The children also heard from Sacha Denham, a learning support assistant at the school, an Ethiopian orphan, who spoke to them about African culture and religion.

“It helped them understand diversity,” Mrs Leighton added.

Pupils also gathered food boxes for residents, during their festival last Thursday at Stokenchurch Methodist Chapel, and visited an elderly couple to deliver a parcel.