St Laurence Junior Academy sends pens to children in Sierra Leone and Ghana

A gift from children at St Laurence

For recycling week, the children at St Laurence Junior Academy in Ramsgate were asked to donate any pens, pencils or leftover stationery they had at home or in school to send off to Pens for Kids UK.

The family-run charity sends stationery to children all over the world who can’t afford their own for school.

Across the week Mrs Mountjoy, Head of Geography, was inundated with all sorts of stationery being left in her classroom and pigeonhole. Everywhere she turned, more stationery appeared! Then came the mammoth task of sorting through all the donations to make sure they worked and were suitable to be sent to hotter climates – crayons would not have made the trip.

Luckily, several year 5 volunteers offered to help sort and pack the donations. After losing count of how many pens, pencils, rubbers and rulers that the children managed to donate, they sent two massive boxes off!

In recognition of their hard work, the children were sent a message from PFK, saying: “We have received the parcels. Thank you so much to you and your pupils, we really appreciate the effort that has gone into collecting this huge amount of stationery that is going to go to very appreciative new homes. We hope to include these in our next deliveries to schools in Sierra Leone / Ghana. Thank you for your support.”

Mrs Mountjoy said: ‘Sometimes it is easy to take things like a pen for granted. In lots of countries, children aren’t sent to school as their parents can’t afford it. School stationery is one of the many expensive hurdles that parents have to overcome.

“We felt it was important that our children show our Christian values by helping those less fortunate than themselves but to also highlight how lucky they are to have so many resources that they can often take for granted.”