On a snowy Monday morning Fyling Hall Graduate and last year’s head girl, Olivia Coates, visited Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary to hand over the cheque from the charitable works last academic year. They were absolutely delighted and we look forward to their updates on how the money is spent. Olivia shares her thoughts on fundraising for the sanctuary and Neoangels below.

Students this year have chosen Young Minds as the charity. This organisation’s aim is for all young people to have the mental health support they need, when they need it. At this time of rising mental health concerns amongst young people, it could not be more relevant. The sixth form have already been busy working towards their fundraising target with things like the Halloween party and non-uniform day. Watch out for details of more events soon.

Olivia reflects on last year’s fundraising

After an amazing year of raising £5000 for notable charities, it was a brilliant feeling to hand over the donations to the three charities. After watching my brother spend a month on the neonatal unit at James Cook when he arrived 10 weeks early, I knew I wanted to raise money to say thank you for such an amazing job that they do. The money raised for Neoangels will help support families and babies on the neonatal unit at James Cook.

As part of my Gold Duke of Edinburgh I volunteered at Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary where I witnessed how much work is involved in caring for the animals and how much they rely on public donations. Being involved in the performing arts department for all of my education at Fyling Hall, I felt it was fitting to donate to this department as a way of saying thank you. 

On behalf of myself and Josh, we would like to thank everyone for their support over the last year for making these events a success, and thank you to those people who helped us make them a reality. 

– by Olivia Coates