NHEHS CHARITY NEWSLETTER

Date: July 2022

This last newsletter of the year will begin with a series of thank yous! Thank you to all of you for getting involved with planning and leading events, donating items to the collections, raising money and volunteering. We often receive thank yous from the organisations which we have been supporting and here are a few thank yous we have received this half term.

The School Book Drive

Thank you to both the Junior and Senior schools for donating so many good quality books to the work of the Children’s book project. A van was required to collect the donated items from both ends of the school. They will now go to the charity book depot to be sorted by volunteers and redistributed to primary school children in the London area.

Days for Girls - School Collection

Thank you for all your generous contributions to the Days for Girls collections. As a school community we raised an amazing total of: £510.

We also collected:

190 pairs of knickers

121 flannels

53 soaps

Fabric for bags

All of these items will be put together for kits for Tanzania next month. Thank you to everyone for getting involved and to Carmen and Lola for leading so well on this so well. We hope to make this an annual event. We look forward to hearing about the girls who will receive their packs in Tanzania.

We received a lovely card from the charity saying:

On behalf of the local branch of Days for Girls, I would like to thank you all so much for your support for our work. The result of Carmen, Lola’s and your eorts is incredible. It will make a huge dierence to our work but more importantly, spread the word about the diculties many girls around the world face. Simple, practical things can give people chance to help themselves.

Harrow Club

Thank you to all the Big Sisters and Little Sisters in Y7&12 for your enthusiastic participation in the Pitshanger Park sponsored walk, raising money for the work of the Harrow Club. We were blessed with a lovely sunny afternoon. All groups managed to achieve 2 laps of the park and several groups were well on their way to completing three laps! (10K in total). The final sponsor money total was £795 which will be match funded by a local business. We received this thank you from the Harrow Club:

I wanted to write thank you so much for donating the monies raised from your sponsored walk to the Harrow Club.

We are currently finalising plans for this Summer which will include taking up to 100 young people away for a week away on a residential trip where they can participate in sports and activities to which they might not otherwise have access. This trip is often the first holiday the young person has ever had.

So, your donation will be allocated to the Summer Holiday Fund and we will feedback to you after the Summer on the content and output of our Summer Holiday Programme.

St David’s Garden Party

On the afternoon of Tuesday 28th June, 12 Y10 students held a Garden Party in the garden of St David’s Care Home. The residents enjoyed an hour of simple craft activities, listening to students perform musical and poetry items and joined in with the choir signing many of their old favourites ie ‘You are my sunshine’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’. There was also a lot of lovely cake was enjoyed, all made by the Y10s. Well done to the Y10 group for interacting so nicely with the residents of St David’s. They really appreciated the group coming over to spend time and chat with them. One resident proudly told the students that she was 97!

We received this thank you from the Activities’ Manager:

To NHEHS. The residents absolutely loved the garden party. So a great big thank you. Please come back anytime. Best wishes Sandra and St David’s

Log Cabin Party

The whole of Y10 recently planned and delivered a party for the young people who attend the afterschool centre at the Log Cabin, Ealing. Each Y10 chose an area to prepare: decorating, indoor and outdoor games, party food and the play. Well done to Y10 for being so welcoming and preparing such a lovely party for our guests. They enjoyed craft, pass the parcel, egg and spoon races, sport’s games, drawing with jumbo chalk, bubbles, musical statues, singing along with instruments, a superb party tea and a fun rendition of Cinderella to finish. Each guest also left with their own party bag.

The manager emailed to thank Y10 for the party. The children had a great time and Y10 were very attentive and encouraging to the children despite the diculties that many of them have. The Log Cabin are already looking forward to visiting again next year.

Care 4 Calais Activity Afternoon and Collection

At the end of June, 14 students who have dierent responsibilities for social concern and charity work in school planned and ran an event for refugee children living in a hostel near Hayes high street. The children were already excitedly waiting outside the hostel for our students to arrive. As there is no communal living space in the hostel all activities had to take place in the car park. Fortunately the weather was hot, which made the water races all the more enjoyable. The children enjoyed crafts, parachute games, races and stuck in the mud. The team will be visiting again. This time they hope to also read with the children help them with English skills and go over simple Maths skills. If you would like to be part of this team (you would not have to commit to attending every month), please let Mrs Johnson know.

Shoe and Sewing club collections

Thank you to everyone who contributed towards the shoe collection for refugee children supported by Care 4 Calais as well as the sewing collection for a local primary school. All items collected will be distributed at the end of term.

Charity and Volunteering Reps’ Highlights of 2021-22

Sophie Y12

My charity highlight of the year was the cultural dress up day that took place in May. It was amazing to see so many dierent outfits from so many people and demonstrated how diverse our school is. I found the whole day really fun and we were able to raise lots of money for Toilet Twinning meaning we were able to sponsor a tap in Afghanistan and a whole school toilet block in Malawi.

Niamh Y12

It has been a joy to see the exceptional eorts from people across the school in terms of the charity achievements. In particular, the response to the Ukraine crisis, with the yellow and blue hand knitted sunflowers being sold at school events as well as Party In The Park in Ealing and Green Days in Chiswick, was amazing. It has also been really fantastic to see a lot of the traditional charity events that existed before the pandemic returned in full force like the Year 12-7 Big - Little Sister walk. All in all this year has been an achievement that I hope everyone is proud of, and I’m very excited to see what the school does next!

Preet Y10

This year, there were many charity events that took place to raise money for various causes. My personal favourite was the Log Cabin Party that was organised by Year 10. The whole year group came together to organise dierent activities such as musical statues, colouring, tattoos, and even a play for the kids to take part in. It was amazing to see how much the kids enjoyed the party, with all the workers being really appreciative and kind. My role was to help out with the play, which we decided would be Cinderella, and again, it was lovely to see the joy of the kids at being able to watch a play and take part in the fun games. This Log Cabin Party was just one of the many amazing charity events that were put on this year, and I'm looking forward to getting involved in the dierent volunteering events that will take place next year!

Estella Y10

This year many charity and volunteering events have taken place, however my favourite was volunteering at my local charity shop. I did this for roughly 8 months and learnt many new skills including building on my communication. I also enjoyed working on the honey and grape farm, which was a completely new skill for me to learn which I enjoyed a lot.

Carmen H Y10

This year I have loved being a Volunteering Lead and especially loved helping organise and be a part of the many new charity events that have occurred this academic year. The events I've enjoyed the most were the Log Cabin Party, the knitting sunflower initiative for Ukraine, Cultural dress up day which supported the Toilet Twinning charity and of course supporting Days for Girls! These are just a few of many events that helped raise money for amazing international and local charities and everybody's generosity and enthusiasm has helped us support them the best we can.

Uma Y10

I thoroughly enjoyed the charity opportunity this year, my favourite part was having the log cabin party. I loved interacting with the children and it felt good to help other people. Making them smile and helping them have fun was the best part! I also loved singing and talking to the residents of some care homes!!

Megan Y10

This year my charity highlight was the things we did for acts of kindness day. On the 30th of March it was acts of kindness day and we sold lollipops throughout the week to raise money for Ukraine. We put tags on the lollipops to encourage people to write kind messages to friends or even themselves. Overall we sold all of our lollipops and raised more than £100 to help in Ukraine. It was very fun to take part in and I loved seeing people give them to friends as an act of kindness.

Miss Newman’s charity highlight of the year

This year ’ s charity and fundraising events have been outstanding, from the wonderful Harvest Festival hampers to the many events held by the dierent year groups for their chosen charities. I would have to say that one of the highlights of this year was the Sports Relief Dodgeball competition in March 2022. With 8 teams from Year 7 to 13 entering, it was a great morning and lunchtime of exciting fun and games! It was great to see teams getting dressed up, having team talks between games and the determination of the Year 7’s when they faced the Year 11 and Year 13 teams!

I would like to say a big thank you to each and every one of you who donated, volunteered or assisted in any way through charities this year - we could not have done it without your generous support!

Miss Gamberini’s charity highlight of the year

In my first year in the Charity team, I had the opportunity to see first hand the outstanding work our NHEHS students are capable of doing when it comes to raising awareness and money for a good cause.

Starting with an incredible Pizza & Movie event run by the Y11, the Autumn Term witnessed the Y10 organising and running the first joint Senior & Junior school event of the year. It was lovely to see the year 10 students engaging with the little ones, teaching them how to play together with kindness and respect. The charity year went better and better, with a Spring Term full of bubble tea and pancakes thanks to the hard work of the Y9 and the Y8 Charity reps.