Story and photos by Julie Clark
At Abbeyfield Primary School we pride ourselves at being a caring school. Not only do we have wonderful children, our parents are pretty special too. When we decided to give something back to our community and start collecting food for a local food bank our parents and staff were only too pleased to help. The children in our Rights Respecting Council were keen to promote this project. They learned a lot about why we were collecting food and spread their knowledge, giving talks in assembly, in class and through the posters they designed and made. When the Rights Respecting Council were asked to give their opinions about the project the answers were really insightful. One Y6 boy said: “I believe we are providing things, like food, to people that don’t have any. It makes me feel happy that our school is caring for the people in our community. It also makes me sad because there are people that don’t have enough food in the world”. A Y3 boy said: “Some people go through rough times and need some help. That’s what we are doing, giving them some help” A Y4 girl told us: “We are helping all kinds of people eat over Christmas. Everyone’s the same, it’s just that some people have got less than other people”. The project was rolled out for three weeks and as the weeks passed the food donations just kept on coming. The whole school could see the mountain of food getting bigger and bigger. One child brought her sweets in saying “I don’t need these so I’m going to give them to someone who does”. The response we had was heartwarming. They said: “Everyone, both clients and volunteers, at the Fir Vale foodbank are extremely grateful and were moved to hear of the generosity of the students, parents and staff.”
