TWO schoolchildren from Holy Cross Primary School in Edinburgh provided Missio Scotland with an extra special Christmas present by sending in a cheque for £434 from the school.
Innovative Primary 6/7 pupils Nina and Hannah held a bring a buy book fair at the school to raise funds for the Scottish arm of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS)—the Pope’s official charity for overseas mission.
“All the money we raised is to go to Missio Scotland,” the girls said. “The way the book fair worked was that in the run-up to book fair we collected books from Primaries 1-7. Then on the week of the book fair we priced them and set the stalls up. We collected 400 books—all types of books—and raised £434 from those that were sold at the fair. We worked hard to raise that total!
“We got the idea for the book fair because we were learning about the Pope Francis Faith Award and because we like to read! We chose to donate the money to Missio Scotland as it is the Pope’s chosen charity in Scotland.”
The school’s depute headteacher, Angela Burnett, was delighted with the girls’ efforts and heaped praise upon them for organising the fair and the class for taking part so enthusiastically.
“The children in P6/7 love to read and were excited about organising a book fair,” she said. “They collected over 400 books, organised and sold them to make the affordable to all. The children were keen to donate all funds raised to Missio Scotland as part of their Pope Francis Award. Everyone at Holy Cross is very proud at the efforts of the school community.”
The fantastic amount raised by Holy Cross will go to the Missionary Children branch of the PMS. In Scotland, it works in tandem with Catholic Primary Schools and asks children to do two things every day: Pray for the children in mission areas of the world and donate a small coin. Missionary Children joins with children all over the world to help some of the poorest children in the world, children of all faiths or none and also seeks to develop young people and prepare them as the missionaries of the future. Its funds help to: Build clinics, supply medicines and nutritional help, support education projects for children (building, funding and supplying schools). The donations help to develop a child both in an educational and spiritual sense.
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