Whitworth High raises nearly £1,200 for Macmillan

Students get ready to serve cakes at the Whitworth Community High School Macmillan Coffee Morning

Caring Whitworth Community High School student Charlotte Evans organised a bake sale at school which raised £1,200 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

When the school held its last Macmillan Coffee Morning, the event raised £400 and Charlotte, 14, was then in Year 7.

She said: “With Covid, we have not been able to do as much fundraising as we would normally have done, so I spoke to Mr Oliver [Associate Headteacher] at the end of the last school year and spent the six weeks’ holiday putting a plan together.”

Charlotte is a member of the School Council and she presented her ideas to members of the senior leadership team and got the go-ahead for the bake sale.

She said: “I held an assembly in school when I asked everyone if they could bake cakes and bring them into school for the sale. I also explained that they had to include an ingredients’ list.

“I work at Healey Dell Tearooms and so I am trained to know about allergies. We only had one item that contained nuts so we kept it in a sealed box so no one could accidentally touch it.

“I was the main organiser along with my friend Lucy Lord and on the day, I was helping to run the stall at break with quite a few Year 11s and 10s and it was amazing.

“The queue went all around the hall and out into the corridor and we had to delay the bell by five minutes so that everyone could be served.”

A further sale was organised at lunchtime and the few items left were then donated to Barley View Care Home and Sunnyside Rest Home in Whitworth and The Laurels Nursing and Residential Home in Bacup.

Before the sale, Charlotte had already raised £200 with donations from her father’s firm and other businesses in Whitworth and Bacup when she went round to collect raffle prizes.

She said: “My Nanna made a fantastic hamper with cheese and wine and that got a lot of attention and we had parents buying raffle tickets through Parent Pay.

“This time we raised £1,075 and there is still more money coming in. I was so happy. I was hoping to raise £1,000.”