The community at Churchfields – The Village School in Atworth and Monkton Farleigh has made an impressive start in its campaign to raise the £15,000-£20,000 needed to renovate the school’s swimming pool area funds.
The fundraising efforts are being organised by a team of parents from the school, including Zoe Gibbs, who explained, “During a normal school year, children from across both bases use the pool, although now it is in real need of renovation. The most important consideration is a new pool liner at a cost of £8,500, then after that we would love to be able to renew the solar panels to heat the pool, the changing rooms for the children and the area around the pool. Ideally if we could raise enough and if permission was granted, we would also love to put a structure over the pool to enable it to be used all year round.”
As part of the fundraising, Zoe and the other members of the fundraising team organised a sponsored challenge called ‘Churchfields navigates the world’ for the children to complete during the summer break called. “The idea was that the children could walk, run, scoot, cycle and swim as far as possible during the summer holidays to raise money for the school pool,” said Zoe. “Looking at the information we have received so far, we have managed to travel from the school to Abbeville in France (277 miles) and have raised £535.”
Other fundraising efforts include a JustGiving page which has raised in excess of £1,900, while Zoe and another mum, Charli Shiner, completed a sponsored skydive and raised £1,300. A new JustGiving page is now up and running to help raise the rest of the funds.
Talking about the fundraising, Churchfields’ headteacher, Simon Futcher, commented, “We are delighted with the generosity shown by the school community. Their contributions will directly impact on the pool remaining open, providing a resource that supports the health and well-being of all our pupils.”