Helping teachers help their students

Dearest our 500 reason's community,

This message being sent with love and kindness, as the world around us seems to fill more and with unkindness and fear and cruelty. And for those nursing your sore heads and mucky feet from Glastonbury we hope you waved your flags high, we should get some 500 Reasons 'Kindness Matters!" flags for 2027... see you on the dance floor.?

This weeks nomination comes from one of our very kind members, the lovely Michelle, who works tirelessly to help young people realise their potential in education and personal development, a person who obviously always goes the extra mile for all of her students.

The nomination that follows speak for itself, but what we are always humbled by is when young people, who have been dealt blows, continue to care, be kind and give to others.

We have given N the £500 so she can have some selfcare, treat herself and be a 'normal teenager' for a bit.

One of my great privileges of being a part of the admin team, is I get to surround myself with three of the most generous humans, who constantly strive to make our world a better place, Ray (Admin team member extraordinaire) has donated two of his personal bikes to the girls so that they continue their education with some freedom. 

We wish these young woman all the success.

And to remind them that 500 stranger are really rooting for them

Happy Heatwave.

Love

Charlotte, Jen, Joe and Ray.

My nomination is for Z and N. They are two of four sisters. Z is 16 and N is 13. Z and N have been on our radar for a long time. Their eldest sister L (who has left our school now) is in college locally and their little sister D is about to join our school in Sept as a new Y7.  

The reason they as a family have been on our radar is because we have wanted to support them due to mum's health problems. The girls care for mum and do a lot of the physical things that mum can't do. 

They have all worked hard in school even when times have been tough in the last year.

The girls and mum fled the family home due to Dad's mental health issues (which meant he was eventually sectioned) and domestic violence.  They left with very little. Due to a lack of available rooms in refuges to keep the girls and mum together, they had had to have emergency accommodation in a hotel. The girls were actually given some help from the hotel staff as they no longer had to do the bulk of caring (domestic duties like cooking, cleaning and laundry).

Right now, they have now been given more suitable accommodation but things are still tough. They live around the corner from O ( the student who you previously helped) and we have been able to get them free school transport through a loop hole but that won't last forever.  We've recently applied for a bike loan scheme to allow Z (the second eldest) to get a bike so she can choose where to study at A Level instead of being forced to go to the nearest institution barely within walking distance.  There are so many applications for this this scheme she may not get it. 

She wants to apply for a Public Services course in Sept as she has a dream of being a police officer.

I'm hoping if successful the family can use the money to buy Z a bike, helmet and bike lock for her studies.

N is still in Y9 but is also in need. We're running a school trip to a theme park and mum has struggled to pay anything towards it. We've already subsidised it heavily as a school but it would be lovely to use some of the money not for the trip ticket but to allow N to have some more spending money and even maybe a new outfit for the trip. Being a teenage girl is hard! 

I think it's worth noting that these girls are amazing young carers who not only care at home but are brilliant role models in school who show empathy and kindness with everyone they meet.