In Kent, approximately 16.1% of children are living in poverty, meaning that many of these children may suffer during the colder months. Following the holiday season, during which many of us tend to receive new items of clothing, we carried out a collection of ‘winter warmers’ for local primary school children, as we realised that the privilege of attending school in warmth and comfort is not something that all children are as lucky to have as we are. Aided by Miss Davison and Mrs Strange, we were able to identify that the most useful items to collect would be hats, scarves, gloves and earmuffs. In the hope to collect enough items to donate to various local primary schools, we appealed to the Sevenoaks School community to donate any old winter clothing items that were still in suitable condition. We set up collection boxes around school, as well as manning a collection point in Duke’s Meadow, to encourage people to donate, and we were pleasantly surprised at the overwhelming response we received. An impressive amount of students and parents were bringing in large bags of items to donate and we spent the weekend sorting through a mountain of winter clothing – it was really heartwarming to see how much people had donated! In the end we were able to supply ten primary schools with a box each containing a variety of socks, gloves, hats, scarves and earmuffs. The schools which we donated to were prioritised by the amount of students they had that were on Pupil Premium, which we learned meant that these schools had a higher proportion of students that qualified to be given financial support or aid such as free school meals or supervision beyond school hours. We are immensely grateful to everyone who contributed donations or helped us in carrying out the collection, and in particular we would like to thank Miss Davison and Mrs Strange for their advice and support for us in carrying out this endeavour.
Sophia Holzhoefer and Alia Shahnaz, Lower Sixth
