What's On: Student-led charity drive needs you!

Sixth Formers in leadership roles (Head Boy, Head Girl, their deputies, Senior Prefects and Head Mentors) have been looking for ways to reconnect with the local community. At their online brainstorm meeting, they came up with the idea of asking for food and warm coat donations as part of a whole-school charity initiative.

All Harrodian pupils and their families are invited to drop off donations of non-perishable food items and warm, clean coats to the school security lodge on Monday 8th February to Friday 12th February between the hours of 09.30am and 2.30pm. 

Anyone making a donation can drive into the car park and deliver their items to the shelter at the side of the lodge where empty storage boxes will be laid out for food collections and a clothes rail for the coats. Please note that face masks must be worn, particularly for those getting out of their vehicles. 

Thanks to a very generous donation from a parent, a large food order from Booker Wholesale (Cash & Carry) will start off the food collection.

Later on in the week, once further donations have been made, a group of our Sixth Formers will go into school to help process the goods, to ensure they are transported to the right place and in some cases make deliveries themselves in their own vehicles.

Coats will be donated to the West London Welcome, a refugee and migrant centre, and food will be distributed to the Barnes Foodbank, based at Castelnau Community Centre and other local foodbanks in need of supplies. 

As part of this student-led charity drive, Head Boy Blake, above, also delivered some second-hand MacBook laptops donated by the school to the Barnes Community Association, in response to their digital poverty appeal. A big thank you to our IT team who spent time refurbishing these computers and getting them ready to use. The computers will be distributed to other local schools and given to pupils in need of them for remote learning purposes.

(For those families living in or near the Barnes area, who would like to donate any old IT equipment that could be refurbished, please contact the BCA and read more on their website by clicking here)

With mock examinations and intense timetables, it is impressive the way our Sixth Formers are trying to make such a contribution. When asked why she feels it is important they get involved, Head Girl Sonya replies;

"Getting the students involved in a community initiative shows them that they can still make a difference, even if they feel powerless to do so right now. Additionally, more than ever food banks and charities will be struggling and we want to do all we can to help them."