April 2015
The children of Petteril Bank Community School claimed the Judges’ Favourite award for the Bright Stars competition. With the help and support of Story Homes’ staff, the Year 5 and 6 children at the school raised over £1,500 for the CFM Cash for Kids charity by organising an exciting race event of small kit cars.
The children’s endeavours also earned the school a prize of £250 as part of their award and this was presented to them by Sarah Glass, Business Development Manager at the Centre for Leadership Performance.
Karen Graham from Story Homes with the Judges’ Favourites
With a grand sum of £1,533.10 to hand over to the Cash for Kids charity and much to the delight of the children, Courage the Cat visited to accept a cheque on behalf of CFM.
Bright Stars is lead by the Centre for Leadership Performance (CforLP) and encourages Cumbrian primary school children to reveal their entrepreneurial skills by giving them a stake of £50 to invest and grow.
Karen Graham, PR and Communications Advisor at Story Homes has been working on the project with the children: offering PR and marketing advice to the 10 and 11 year olds along the way. “This has been a remarkable project for Story Homes to be involved in. To see the children gain in confidence and learn new skills while working on a project that really interests them and one that doesn’t come their way everyday, is rewarding. We’ve really enjoyed the journey with them and Story Homes will certainly be looking to keep this positive relationship ongoing,” Karen says.
The pupils of Petteril Bank Community School showed initiative, resilience and passion throughout the whole project and Sarah from CforLP praises their hard work: “When it came to the judging it really was a tough job as all schools deserved to win. Based on all the schools updates and lovely photos they sent in we felt that at Petteril Bank came up with a great idea to hold an event to race cars. This was a day that involved school pupils and parents but also the wider community of Carlisle and the local businesses. The children showed great determination and enthusiasm throughout and the amount raised has been incredible.”
Sarah Glass, CforLP and Karen Graham, Story Homes
No-one had been prouder of the children’s success than class teacher, Sarah Lee, who enthusiastically says: “Thank you for the opportunity you have given my children. They have thrived on the challenge and it has helped them to reveal new skills, enjoy new challenges and most of all realise that they can achieve and reach for the moon! By doing this they have fallen among the stars and we are absolutely delighted to be awarded Judges’ Favourite.”
Courage the Cat accepts a cheque from the children
“We have had the most amazing time doing the Bright Stars project. Story Homes have absolutely excelled themselves and provided the children with such valuable experiences they will never forget. Thank you once again for allowing us to be part of this project and thank you so much for teaming us up with Story Homes.”
Chairman of Story Homes, Fred Story, met the children when they pitched for sponsorship money for one of the racing cars and he praised them highly for their efforts saying that he had been impressed with their winning award and maintains Story Homes’ involvement in Bright Stars: “There is no doubt that we wish to be involved in these projects in the future, what a great result.”
Story Homes maintains a community ethos and supports many projects across the north of England and south west Scotland, to find out more, click here.
