Students donate over 2000 books

Staff and pupils from Rainford High celebrated World Book Day in a truly global way in a fundraising initiative to try and spread the love of reading.

Sara Wheelock,
associate principal at Rainford High, said: “Can you imagine what it would be like to have never held a book? Sadly, that is a reality for many children in Africa.

“When you don’t have access to books, it’s difficult to improve your reading skills. And when you can’t read, your future is nowhere near as bright as it could be. But this World Book Day, the staff and pupils at Rainford High took part in Book Cycle’s ‘Send a Book to Africa’ project.

“We asked pupils to bring in £1 and a book that they enjoyed reading so it could be shipped to children in Ghana, where we have already done so much great volunteering work with the charity Thrive Africa.

“Teachers wore fancy dress as famous book characters and were delighted to collect donations of over £850 and receive in excess of 2000 donated books”

At lunch-time, the library was a hub of activity including: the World Book Day bumper book quiz, which was organised as a treasure hunt, with questions hidden around the library; interactive quizzes online on Harry Potter, Bear Grylls and much more. Pupils also voted for their 2016 all-time best book, which was unanimously decided to be Harry Potter.

Sara Wheelock said: “We had lots of fun celebrating World Book Day at Rainford High and we hope that the fundraising event helped raise awareness that being able to read books is a privilege that we shouldn’t take for granted and we encourage our pupils to read even more!”