Each year, Abingdon Prep chooses a charity to support and for whom fundraising events are held. Over the past few years, the school has raised in excess of £80,000 for a selection of worthwhile causes including Helen and Douglas House, Medical Detection Dogs, The Footsteps Foundation, Riding for the Disabled, The Air Ambulance and Be Free YC. Everybody in the school community gets involved in the fundraising and the collective efforts over the past few years have been extremely impressive.
We hold many fundraising events throughout the year, including a charity-themed home clothes day, a silver coin trail and sponsored swim. In addition, our Year 7 pupils take part in a Dragon’s Den style challenge creating their own companies with 100% of profits donated to our chosen charity. The most popular event to date has been The Great APS Bake Off, where the children show some very competent and independent culinary skills but the most enthusiasm is always reserved for the tasting.
We continue to support The Gatehouse in Oxford, who provide vulnerable and homeless adults with food, warmth and company for a couple of hours each day. Pre-Prep donate their produce from the Harvest Festival and as a whole school, we have donated presents of warm clothes and chocolates at Christmas. In partnership with the Nasio Trust and Abingdon Rotary Club we also sponsor four children from Kenya through their education.
In addition, each one of our four houses chooses a charity. The children give presentations on their suggested charities and the house vote on their preferred charity. They then take responsibility for deciding on and running a fundraising activity during the summer term, previous year examples have been a chocolate tombola and cake sale. Past charities have included Thinking Of Oscar, Cancer Research, WaterAid, Headway and Nepal Earthquake Fund.
