Sixth Form students at Astley Cooper School deliver Christmas joy

Marissa and Gabriel delivering 35 gift bags full of gifts to Dunelm Hemel Hempstead

Sixth Form student leadership team members Gabriel (Head Boy) and Marissa (Deputy Head girl, head of events) organised collections of gifts from the Sixth Form students, staff and students from KS3 and KS4 for the Dunelm Delivering Joy Christmas Tag Scheme which helps charities in the local area.

They managed to collect over 1400 gifts and couldn't believe how generous everyone had been. Marissa, Gabriel and many other Sixth Form students did lots of work behind the scenes to ensure that there were enough donations even going as far as funding lots of gifts themselves.

The team then bought Christmas gift bags to pack the items in before loading their cars and dropping off the donations to Dunelm, Hemel Hempstead last week, filling 4 large trolleys.

The staff at Dunelm were extremely grateful. Tobias at Dunelm Hemel Hempstead Community Support emailed the Head of Sixth Form, Charlotte Ollerenshaw-East to say. 'We worked with 14 locations local to our store - including primary schools, care homes, children's charities, Age UK day centres and even our local hospitals. We’re so grateful to everyone at The Astley Cooper School that donated gifts this year, collectively ensuring 1400 people won’t go without a gift this Christmas!'

I am extremely proud of our two Sixth Form students who have gone above and beyond to spread the joy this Christmas to those who need it most and would like to thank all of our Sixth Form students and staff who made this possible.