Community Contributions
Throughout the year, the children at St James's have lots of opportunities to give-back to our local community. We believe that teaching our children to make valuable contributions to their local community is a vital part of them becoming well-rounded and successful individuals. Here are just a few of the ways in which our children have made community contributions this year.
Harvest Festival Donation - The Manna House Pantry
For Harvest this year, we were pleased to support ‘Your Local Pantry Manna House’, a local membership food shop in Halesowen. Members pay a small subscription of a few pounds a week, and in return can choose groceries worth many times more, often saving up to £1,000 a year on shopping bills. Manna House Pantry is currently helping around 200 local families struggling financially to save on their groceries. We were overwhelmed by the generosity of our families and 4 car loads of food were donated to The Manna House Pantry. We received this letter of thanks:
Dear children of St James,
I am writing on behalf of Bethel Church, Blackheath to say a big thank you to you all for supporting our Manna House Pantry Project.
We were delighted to receive your generous Harvest donation. Well done to you all! You are amazing!
At the moment, Manna House is helping around 100 families each week with their grocery shop, so a well-stocked Pantry will give them plenty of choice.
Looking after a home & a family is very expensive. The cost of everything has gone up a lot in recent months. Coming to the Pantry helps these local families to save money on their food bill. The money that they save can be used instead to pay for other bills such as the rent, gas and electricity.
Thank you for thinking of the needs of others and finding a way to help them.
Please say thank you to your parents/carers for buying & then helping you to bring your Harvest food into school.
Best wishes to you all.
Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child
As a Church of England primary school with Christian values, it is very important to us that our children have the opportunity to see and experience our values in action. Participating in ‘Operation Christmas Child’ enabled our children to apply the values of kindness and respect. The mission of ‘Operation Christmas Child’ is to provide a message of hope for children in need who are experiencing some of the toughest circumstances around the world. We invited families to fill a shoebox with small, but much needed, gifts - a form of easily transportable ‘Christmas stocking’ wrapped and packed with love. We received a grand total of 96 shoeboxes and were very grateful to our children and families who transported these from St James’s to a local collection point - the car was jam packed! We hope that this helped our children to remember that Christmas is about sharing hope and love and that, in the words of Jesus, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive' Acts 20 v 35.
Children in Need
This year, we dressed in spotty items to raise money for Children in Need and raised a fantastic £342. All donations go to the charity that helps improve the lives of disadvantaged children and young people around the UK.
