St Anthony's IMPACT Group in Sunderland have been using their Lenten alms giving efforts to respond to their Faith Festival held in the school last December.
The pupils at St Anthony’s Girls’ Catholic Academy have put their charity thinking hats on once again for their annual Lenten alms giving. This has brought back memories of the school’s December ‘Faith Festival’ culminating in the Christmas Charity Market, when over £1,000 was raised for various charities.
This was the school’s fourth Faith Festival and it has grown in size every single year since its infancy in 2013. During the week a number of guests spoke of how faith has affected them in their lives to a captive audience of St Anthony’s pupils.
Visitors included Claire from the Missio charity who spoke of the work of Christ through the youth of the Church; Cloud Singh from the Newcastle Sikh Gurdwara who discussed Sikh beliefs and women’s roles in the faith and our daily ‘Faith Chat’, a chance for pupils to ‘speed date’ through different faiths and take part in small group discussions with members of varying faiths.
The week long event produced some fantastic feedback from the pupils who felt ‘energised’ and ‘really excited about faith’. The culmination of this week was our Christmas Charity Market, which was hugely successful, raising over £1000 for various charities including CAFOD and Manzini Care.
The Group are already in planning for their fifth festival and rumours are, it will be their biggest and best yet!
