By Mrs Anderson, RE department
My form were very proud of organising the recent coat collection for the homeless and I personally would like to thank every parent, carer, student and member of staff who contributed in any way to the collection.
Gemma Shaper explained ‘We collected coats for various charities such as Changing lives, the People’s Kitchen, the Diocesan Refugee service and Shelter. We received over 300 coats which is amazing as it will change many people’s lives for the better by having a warm coat in the current winter weather as many people may not be able to afford brand new coats so having these coats to donate will be really helpful for people who need them. We also created a chain of unbroken coats with the help of students from all year groups in STM which related to when the mission came in with the theme of Gods unbroken love.’
Will Lee explained, ‘We gathered all of the coat donations in our form class each morning and put them in boxes of 25 each day, this was for the less fortunate people during the winter who didn’t have access to such luxuries that we have such as coats’
Jen Bone commented that, ‘We were also able to collect socks, scarves and hats for men and women.’
Ellie Curry explained ‘It was lovely to see the generosity and hopefully it makes people happy!’
Below are some photos of the coats being dropped off at the various charities in the local area, all of whom were extremely grateful to the students and St Thomas More community.
Update 10th March: Mr Stanton, former Head of History at St Thomas More, came into school to take some of the remaining bags of coats for Centrepoint, a homeless charity that he volunteers with in Sunderland.
The ‘unbroken’ chain of coats was an important part of the hugely successful Mission that students participated in at the start of February. Further articles on the week can be found below, including videos and music from the week:
Mission 2020 song and interview
More information on all the activities that took place during Mission week can be found in a special edition of More Life, published last week:
