Hamworthy team member supports Easter egg hunt at local school
- Charity
Hamworthy knows supporting the community is important. For this reason, team members can take time out of work to help out wherever there’s need for volunteers. Service team member Kelly Higgins used a few hours on a Friday to support an Easter egg hunt at local St Catherine’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Wimborne.
200 of each - Easter eggs, Malteser bunnies, Cadbury Creme eggs and packs of Haribo sweets, all donated by local businesses – that’s what pupils from St Catherine’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Wimborne were in for on their Easter egg hunt, organised by the school’s charity. This was happily assisted by a member of staff dressed as Peter Rabbit who helped children find the sweets.
Kelly from Hamworthy’s service team and trustee of the charity pulled the strings behind the event. Although the hunt itself was free, leftover and other donated items were sold afterwards to raise funds.
She adds,
“We wanted to give something back for free to the parents. It’s not fair to constantly ask them for money for fundraising activities throughout the year and get nothing in return, especially if more than one child per family goes to our school. That’s why we decided to make the hunt free – it’s one way to keep their faith and support going. It has also been a great opportunity to build relationships with the local small business community to enable us to approach them for funding or assistance in the future.”
Catering to children aged 3 to 10 and pupils from all over East Dorset, Poole and Bournemouth, all fundraising in 2019 will finance a prayer garden and forest school areas. Children, teachers and parents were working on an enclosed piece of land at the back of the building at weekends. The school is now looking at an external company to supply labour and equipment or to fund it for them.
After securing a couple of grants to purchase items to start a gardening club to turn half of the area into a sustainable vegetable and flower garden, the ultimate aim is to be ‘self-sufficient’ and sell produce from this piece of land to the local village to raise more funds.
At the beginning of spring, parents, children and teachers created pathways for children to continue outside learning in the form of a forest school. The charity is also working on trying to secure a grant to buy and construct an outside classroom.
With their Easter egg hunt, the charity raised £160 at the after school sale. The £70 profit from this will go towards the garden renovation.
Sam Boshier, marketing manager and member of the CSR committee at Hamworthy comments,
“We all lead busy lives and that also extends to our free time. That’s why we at Hamworthy decided to give team members the opportunity to do something good for the community during work hours and it’s great to see staff making use of it for events such as this.”