Working With the Local and Wider Community
Working with the local and wider community is of high importance to us all here at The Cathedral School of St Peter and St John RC Primary. Our school is continually developing opportunities for community cohesion. We celebrate our families’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds all coming together to help the local and wider community.
We, as a school family embrace our mission statement – “Growing together within God’s loving family, we support, challenge and inspire each other to be the best that we can be” – our children want to make a difference – every person counts!
We want to:
Bring people together; uniting people from diverse backgrounds to work towards a common goal
Foster teamwork, personal growth and self-esteem in our children in the work they do for the community
Support families and strengthen the community for those who live nearby and afar
Encourage our children and families to have a civic responsibility by investing in the community and the people who live in it.
Here are some of the areas our school has helped with fundraising or direct action:
Cornerstone – School has previously donated food items collected at Harvest Festival -
Cornerstone is a day centre providing services to adults facing a wide range of social issues including homelessness, poverty, social isolation, poor mental health, drug and alcohol addiction. www.cornerstonecds.org.uk
CAFOD – Catholic Aid for Overseas Development –
School regularly fundraises at Advent and Easter for CAFOD – keep those St Joseph’s Penny Boxes coming in as every penny counts. For Advent and Lent combined in 2015 and 2016 school has raised a fantastic total of £2,025.37 – Amazing!
CAFOD are an international development charity and the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. They bring hope and compassion to people in poverty.
Manchester Central Foodbank – Daniel O’Brien of the food bank collected the donation of 135kg of food that our fabulous parents and children brought into school to help those in crisis.
“We don’t think anyone in our community should have to face going hungry. That’s why we provide three days’ nutritionally balanced emergency food and support to local people who are referred to us in crisis. We are part of a nationwide network of foodbanks, supported by The Trussell Trust, working to combat poverty and hunger across the UK”.
www.manchestercentral.foodbank.org.uk
AquAid - School has their water cooler and hot water units for staff use and part of our cost to do this goes towards helping their worthwhile efforts.
AquAid is a national, award-winning water cooler company that school is happy to use because of their ongoing support of Christian Aid and their establishment of the Africa Trust in 2010. They bring sustainable solutions to poverty on a daily basis. They are dedicated to supplying clean, fresh drinking water to more than 2 million people - for life!
Salford Loaves and Fishes – Windsor Drop-in Centre
School donates food items collected during the Harvest Festival to the centre.
This is a wonderful drop-in centre for the homeless and those over 18 years who are vulnerable. They offer a place to meet, healthy meals, showers, laundry, free tea, coffee and soup.
www.salfordloavesandfishes.co.uk
Proctor & Gamble/The Broughton Trust
The Boxing Day floods in 2015, in Lower Broughton brought carnage and devastation to many families – some whose children attend our school. Luke Donnelly from the company Proctor and Gamble successfully secured funding for the school to use to the value of £5,000 using their links to the In Kind Direct charity. This was used to obtain house-hold essential items such as toiletries and nappies. The Broughton Trust very kindly came on board to assist in distributing these items to the families affected by the floods. Staff visited The Broughton Trust, along with Luke Donnelly from Proctor & Gamble to assist with bagging up the items.
See here for pictures and more information on how the items were distributed
Proctor and Gamble – www.pg.co.uk – as part of their Social Responsibility, have been partnered with the In Kind Direct charity since 2002. This charity was set up by HRH The Prince of Wales as a way for manufacturers to help communities by donating surplus goods.
The Broughton Trust – www.thebroughtontrust.org.uk – is a charity set up in 1999. The Trust provides adult learning, youth work, employment support and community development across East Salford (Broughton, Kersal and Irwell Riverside).
The Broughton Wetlands
Following the devastation of the Boxing Day floods in 2016, the Broughton Trust has been involved in working to create a flood plain that will not only prevent such an event occurring again in our local area but that will also be of value to the community. The Broughton Trust are hoping that The Wetlands will be open for public access in summer 2017.
To launch the project, we were privileged to have a visit from one of the team from Broughton Trust, who shared with us some of the work they have done and how they hope it will help. Please look at the class pages for years 1, 2 and 6 who benefited from the visit and also to see the photographs. Hopefully the wetlands will encourage more wildlife to inhabit the area around the River Irwell.