Next week, 9th to 13 October, Senior Boys and Girls at Bolton School will be running a footwear charity collection for a Malawi fundraising campaign. Pupils in Years 7-13 will bring in pairs of shoes, trainers and flip-flops for the charity Great Minds, Bright Futures, which helps orphans in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. The Boys’ and Girls’ Divisions signed up to this cause, along with other settings within the Bolton School Foundation, after hearing an assembly presentation by Dave Armstrong and Catherine Foxon earlier this term.
Mr Armstrong, a Bolton School parent, combined his campaign to build Chunzu Primary School in Malawi with Julia Marsden, a Bolton School Junior Girls’ School teacher, after a chance meeting in which she revealed she was also raising money to build a primary and secondary school for street children in the very same country! Indeed, Mrs Marsden had already raised over £10,000 towards the £40,000 she was aiming for when she and Mr Armstrong decided to join forces. Her charity venture was inspired by two trips to Malawi to work with street children in 2017 and 2018. You can watch a film that Mrs Marsden made about her visit to Malawi along with information about the Great Minds, Bright Future charity through this link.
Mrs Marsden has now raised over £20,000 and is travelling to Malawi in 3 weeks’ time with Mr Chadwick to negotiate for land with village chiefs and to work with his orphan feeding programmes. She is currently fundraising via this crowd funding link to help with her travel costs.
Pictured below are Mrs Marsden and Mr Armstrong in the Riley Quad collecting shoes for Malawi children:
