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HMS Collingwood donates funds to help special school
22 February 2018
Staff and students from St Francis School in Fareham were celebrating recently when HMS Collingwood’s Base Warrant Officer visited and presented them with a cheque.
St Francis School, which is a special school for children aged between two and nineteen, with severe learning difficulties, currently relies on two aging minibuses to provide essential sports and educational trips.
To obtain a new vehicle from the Variety Club, they needed to raise a contribution of £14,000 and both staff and students set about fund-raising.
The Warrant Officers’ and Senior Rates’ Mess at HMS Collingwood also wanted to help and raised a total of £2000 through a range of Mess activities including a barbeque, which raised £250, charging guests visiting the Mess on Open Day and supplying collection tins throughout the Mess.
We have been overwhelmed at the support we have had in our fundraising and we are hoping to keep the momentum up
Warrant Officer (WO1) Mick Turnbull is the Mess President of the Warrant Officers’ and Senior Rates’ Mess and so had the pleasure of visiting the school and handing a cheque for £2,000 to Assistant Head Teacher Imogen Sanpanid.
She said, “Originally our target was to raise £13,000 as this was the required contribution from the Variety Club (who we are getting the minibus through and they source the rest of the funding). However we had a letter before Christmas to say that unfortunately they needed to raise their contribution request from £13,000 to £14,000.
“We have been overwhelmed at the support we have had in our fundraising and we are hoping to keep the momentum up so we can make a second grant application for a second minibus.”
Photographs courtesy of Imogen Sanpanid.