School backs used clothing campaign

A primary school has donated dozens of bags of clothing to the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) after a spring clean campaign. Byerley Park Primary School, Newton Aycliffe, asked teachers, pupils and parents to bag up any unwanted clothing and bring it into the school. The clothing collected by the school was donated to GNAAS, a local charity which collects and recycles unwanted clothing, ink cartridges and mobile phones. Collette Trimer, the Parent Teacher Assistant (PTA) who organised the campaign, had earlier urged everyone associated with the school to have a “good spring clean” to boost the charity. Mrs Trimmer said: “The children were told in assembly what the campaign was in aid of, the older ones know what GNAAS is and what they do and they fully backed this campaign.” The school newsletter, Facebook page and text messaging alert system were used to circulate the campaign message. The school got a drop off of the new designed GNAAS collection bags to help with the campaign.

A primary school has donated dozens of bags of clothing to the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) after a spring clean campaign.

Byerley Park Primary School, Newton Aycliffe, asked teachers, pupils and parents to bag up any unwanted clothing and bring it into the school.

The clothing collected by the school was donated to GNAAS, a local charity which collects and recycles unwanted clothing, ink cartridges and mobile phones.

Collette Trimer, the Parent Teacher Assistant (PTA) who organised the campaign, had earlier urged everyone associated with the school to have a “good spring clean” to boost the charity.

Mrs Trimmer said: “The children were told in assembly what the campaign was in aid of, the older ones know what GNAAS is and what they do and they fully backed this campaign.”

The school newsletter, Facebook page and text messaging alert system were used to circulate the campaign message.

The school got a drop off of the new designed GNAAS collection bags to help with the campaign. The new clothing collection bags display a large image of their mascot, Miles the Bear. The image of Miles can be seen once the bag has been filled out which gives the children encouragement to donate more clothing.

Mrs Trimmer added: “This is a good way to support the charity as people are always throwing away clothes that they don’t like, don’t need or don’t fit any more, so why not get the children, parents and teachers involved and encourage them to put the clothing to good use by donating, rather than just binning them.

“The new GNAAS clothing collection bags are a good way to encourage the children to fill the bags.”

The school handed over a total of 230kg of unused and unwanted clothing to GNAAS.

Byerley Park Primary School head teacher Alison Gargan, said: “GNAAS is a great charity that people simply couldn’t do without. The work they do is fantastic.

“It’s a good local charity to support and we know that the clothing donation will generate a lot of money that will be spent in the local area saving lives.”

GNAAS has launched the Spare Some Space Campaign to encourage other schools, community groups and businesses to hold collections. To find out more, please click here.