High school student Joanne hosts coffee morning with a difference
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Joanne Smyth who organised a coffee morning with a difference recently and raised funds for Ignite, pictured presenting a cheque to Jonathon Gault of R H Gault in Ballymoney.
KIND HEARTED Ballymoney girl Joanne Smyth raised a staggering £1,255 when she held a 'coffee morning' with a difference recently - the difference being that it was an 'all day coffee party'.
The Ballymoney High School student and her mum Isobel opened up their home to neighbours, relatives and friends in order to raise money for a charity which is very close to their hearts, Ignite. Ignite is a charity whose members hail from various parts of Northern Ireland and has strong local connections with Ballymoney, Cloughmills and Ballymena. Many members have been involved with projects in Uganda over the last six or seven years and recent projects included building a school which has 205 children registered at present. Most of the children are from single parent families and some are orphans. Each family is living in extremely poor conditions, and education is a gift and a privilege that is never taken for granted.
The next project on Ignite's list is to build two accommodation blocks estimated to cost £18,000 each and the proceeds of Joanne's 'coffee party' will help go some way towards that. Joanne said: "I decided to raise the money for Ignite as it's a good cause and I wanted to help. My three aunts, Eleanor, Joyce and Flora stayed to help with the coffee making. As well as coffee we had cakes, pancakes, scones and boiled cake. We also had two raffles, one of the prizes was a hand carved Harley Davidson motorbike."
Joanne also had a white elephant stall in the garage, a competition to guess the name of the doll, as well as the opportunity to guess how many sweets were in the jar - she never said whether or not she had ate a few herself!
Joanne, 12, printed over 400 leaflets to advertise her coffee party and sale which she spread far and wide across Ballymoney and her old headmaster from Lislagan PS helped her distribute them to classes. Jonathan Gault, a member of Ignite said: "Joanne has made a fantastic contribution to Ignite. We are delighted and extremely proud of all her hard work. I don't know many 12-year-olds that would take the time to organise such an event and raise so much money for a charity, we are all very proud of her."
Joanne would like to thank everybody who came to the coffee party and helped her to raise this fantastic amount for Ignite.
