As part of their Citizenship and PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) programme this year, Year 7 students at Painsley Catholic College have been taking part in the Salvation Army Christmas Present Appeal. This appeal aims to collect presents to be distributed to children in the Stoke-on-Trent area who otherwise would not be receiving gifts this Christmas. Students, either individually or with a friend, chose a gift tag which gave the age of the child for whom the gift was for and then bought a present for that person. From the moment the letters and gift tags were sent home the response was fantastic. Gifts came into school everyday. Amongst the offerings were a guitar, footballs, teddy bears and colouring books. Soon it wasn’t just Year 7 who were contributing; Mrs Brown and her Year 11 students were so touched by the appeal that they had a collection and bought a selection of toys to donate.
On Tuesday 13th December, Neil Denyer from the Salvation Army came to collect the gifts and met some of the Year 7 students who had worked so hard on this appeal. He was impressed with the response and said that it would make a lot of children very happy.
