On Friday, 17th November St. Mary’ s RC primary held their first ever auction. The aim of this on Children in Need day nationwide was designed to support all children in the North East, including these in our school community who are already carers. As a school we are working to support the Young Carers Charter.
The day before parents were invited to bid on any of the 22 lots by phone. On the morning itself we had lots of parents, grandparents and staff watching the lots and Mrs Kengyelics, the school’s parent support adviser, and Mrs Darnell kindly helped to assist Mrs Hargreaves, the deputy head in the auction process, encouraging people to bid higher to raise as much money as possible.
There were a range of lots on offer, quite a few of these being kindly donated from local businesses in the town. Walkers butchers donated a £10 VOUCHER, Petals florists also gave £10 and the Crafter’s Companion donated a party for 10 children for 2 hours. Stephen Hall hairdressers donated £20.00 voucher. Brennan Pet Food donated dog food. Local artist donated two first edition canvas prints. Remy Cointreau donated a bottle of Artisan Gin; Compari Corporate donated a bottle of Aperol Spritz (currently the number 1 cocktail drink). Other prizes were either donated by parents or through contacts that Mrs Kengyelics had; to a luxury duvet, to some unique artwork; which included a 1-1 session on felting.
Quite a few of the staff were successful in winning bids too, which was great.
The children enjoyed the bidding process and were very supportive as bids rose.
Because of your generosity we managed to raise £683 for Young Carers. At the end of the auction, Phillipa May from the Young Carers charity spoke about how overwhelmed she was at the money that was raised. I think the total is now over £700 and we got another private donation of a Harry Potter sorting hat. This is going to be auctioned by sealed bids only and will run up until Tuesday, 5th December.
Mrs Hargreaves, our deputy head commented, “I can only congratulate all those who were successful in the bidding and for some bids there was a bit of a battle.”
“I would also on behalf of the staff, thank you to the winning bidder of the cakes who donated them to the staff- they were delicious. Cake doesn’t hang around long in the staff room.”.
