We were delighted to hear recently that Gatehouse School in Dawlish had held a successful “Bottom Drawer” sale before Christmas to raise funds for two charities including The Helen Foundation. Bev Cook from the school wrote:
“£114 was raised through our Christmas Bottom Drawer Sale. This is a bring-and-buy school 'pop up shop' we run every year to allow the children buy surprise presents for their grown-ups. It's run by myself and the Teaching Assistants where we let the children choose their gift then we wrap it up for them to take home. We've been doing the Bottom Drawer Sale for many years. The children and staff look forward to it each year as the children love the idea of shopping for themselves in a safe environment. Each year the TAs allocate a charity close to our hearts this year it was a split vote between yourselves and the Children's Hospice, SouthWest.”
THANK YOU GATEHOUSE!
Gatehouse have always been creative in using their THF funding and most recently in December 2021 we reported on their Big Felt project led by artist Jess Carvill to make a hanging celebrating one of the school's core values: flourish.
All pupils were given the opportunity to make an individual piece of brightly-coloured pre-felt with the aim of creating a colourful, positive and uplifting image of a summer wild meadow bursting into bloom. Each individual piece was transferred to the Big Felt and in the afternoon the children learned more about the felting process. They thoroughly enjoyed their hands-on experience of wetting and rolling the finished artwork to fuse all the individual pieces together.