Leweston School’s Charity Week

Posted: 28th March 2022

The Sixth Formers at Leweston School dedicate a week of charity fundraising for their chosen charity, JDRF.

For the past few years, Year 13 have held a 24-hour triathlon in aid of their chosen charity at the end of the Easter term. For instance, last year the funds raised were donated to the Young Minds charity, dedicated to helping young people improve their mental health. This year, the students are going even further by holding a Charities Week at Leweston, which everyone will be involved with during the week of 21-25 March. The charity that Year 13 have chosen for 2022 is the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).

JDRF is a non-profit organisation that is committed to the prevention, treatment and eradication of Type 1 diabetes for young people in the UK. They have supported children living with T1D for 50 years by working to increase the availability of treatments and providing resources to help manage their condition. JDRF’s work has led to new developments in research technology and treatment, with hope of a cure in the near future.

Year 13 have chosen to support this charity for a number of reasons; primarily, due to the direct impact this disease has on members of our school community and their families. As young people themselves, they also appreciated JDRF’s focus on helping children and teenagers with T1D. Furthermore, the fact that the foundation not only seeks to aid young people with T1D, but is also actively searching for a cure made JDRF stand out from many other diabetes charities. One student said,

‘The fact that JDRF is actually looking for a solution and cure for diabetes is so inspiring and I really hope we can be a small part of helping to fund research to make that happen.’
On top of all that, diabetes is not a cause that Leweston has previously supported on such a scale, so the students felt this was a good opportunity to raise awareness of the disease within the school environment and hopefully the wider local community.

The school will be raising money throughout Charity Week through various different endeavours. Firstly, all income from the ‘Tuck Shop’ (Internal school shop where you can buy tuck at break time. Run by Sixth Form the money raised goes to charity) will be donated to JDRF. Additionally, the collection from the school’s Matilda production on 16, 17 and 18 of March will be donated to the charity. There also will be a cake sale on 22 March to raise funds. On the Wednesday, a ‘Would I Lie To You’ quiz! Hosted by Mr Dillow, two teams went head to head making statements, in which the other team had to guess if they were telling the truth or a lie. To culminate the week, Year 13 will be doing a 24-hour sportathlon comprised of Just Dance, cycling and a colour run with the Prep School from the 24-25 March, with the aim of raising as much money as possible.

Written by Isabella C, Year 13.

Categories: Leweston School School News