The Power of Five
Enterprising Form 5 pupils attending Eversfield got creative recently, taking on the school's annual Fantastic Fiver Charity Challenge and raising over £2,900 for the school’s beneficiary charity, Reshomile Primary School, South Africa.
Links with Reshomile School, based in the deprived Diepsloot township, over 8,000 miles away in South Africa, were first established in 2020. Approximately 1500 pupils attend the school with many of the children facing hardship in their daily lives with an absence of basic human needs such as food, energy, water and clothing. A strong bond has developed between the pupils of the two school communities and, this year, Reshomile was announced as the beneficiary charity of the Eversfield’s fundraising programme.
Each pupil, aged just 9 or 10 years old, was given a £5 note and over the course of the six-week challenge used their own business enterprise and creativity to raise as much money as they could. The initiative not only raised essential funds for Reshomile School but also provided valuable learning opportunities in project management, marketing skills and, crucially, developed the children's sense of social responsibility and the value of community engagement.
A wide range of activities took place which included raising funds through car washing, gardening, undertaking handyman jobs, organising raffles and new-to-you second-hand toy and book sales. There was cake baking, pet walking and pampering, and even doggy biscuit baking while some pupils organised sponsored events and jumped on their bikes, dived into pools and donned their running shoes. A charity movie night attracted a crowd for one pupil, another pupil staged a live musical performance and two pupils carved out profits buying in bulk, one reselling chocolate bars and another crafting their own crisp packet outers and reselling individual packets.
Mr Robert Yates, Headmaster at Eversfield, indicated how proud he was of the children, “Compassion is at the heart of our school code and we live in a world that requires us all to interact within society and find ways to make a positive impact on communities that are less fortunate. I am incredibly proud of how all the children rose to the challenge and developed ingenious ways to raise funds to support the community of our partner school in South Africa.”