EXCITEMENT is building for the Herd In The City charity art trail this summer, and so is the fundraising by local schools and community groups who are a part of it.
Herd In The City is a public art trail created by Havens Hospices and Wild in Art and the Echo is a proud media partner of the event.
It will see over 45 large elephant sculptures and 70 baby elephants placed around the streets of Southend, Shoeburyness and Leigh from Friday July 14 to Monday September 4.
The ‘mini herd’ of baby elephants are being designed and decorated by local schools, groups and community projects as part of the art trails learning programme, sponsored by Rickard Luckin.
One of the groups, Admiral Court Care Home, in Leigh, held a family fun day with a petting zoo.
Attended by Su Harrison, community fundraising officer for Havens Hospices, the day was enjoyed by generations of families raising money for the charity.
Local school, Hinguar Primary in Shoeburyness, organised a fun run attended by Havens Hospices’ very own mascot, Betsy the Butterfly, who saw them race to the finish line and raise £1,123.
Richmond Avenue Primary School held a week of events raising an amazing £2000. The week involved a sponsored run and a cake and craft sale. The crafts were all made by the students in their classes and included homemade playdough, chocolate crispy cakes, bracelets, iced biscuits, mini cheesecakes, bookmarks and keyrings.
Miss K Moneypenny, Headteacher of Richmond Primary School, says, “We took part in the Learning Programme for the last art trail, Hares About Town, and have a leveret called ‘Hope Springs’. The children wanted to continue to fundraise and help Havens Hospice, so we decided to take part in Herd In The City.
“We talked about lots of different things that we could do and decided we would do a variety of fundraising events over the year, but we never expected to raise so much money just from our first event!”
Hockley Primary School held an ele-fund day for the whole school. Stalls included ‘Pin the trunk on the elephant’, a ‘Where’s the elephant’ treasure map, ‘Guess the sweets in a jar’ and selling homemade bookmarks. The day was a great success and raised £1191.70.
Once the trail is over, the baby elephants will be stomping back to their forever home with their creators.
As part of the learning programme, the groups were encouraged to fundraise to cover the cost of their baby elephant, and they certainly came up with some elephant-astic ideas!
For more information and a full list of Herd In The City sponsors, visit www.herdinthe.city.
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