Page 3: Hodgson Helps out
Hodgson Helps out
The Hodgson community is always a hive of festive activity during the Christmas season...
...and the season of giving truly commenced in November with our school-wide 'backpack appeal', organised and run by Pegasus Head of House. Mrs King. She says of the project, which is in its 2nd year,
“During these difficult times, the homeless have suffered more than most, so this backpack appeal will support and remind those sleeping rough that they have not been overlooked, especially at Christmas.”
Each department and form group at the Academy donated items to create a backpack of essentials, including food, winter and waterproof clothing, toiletries and a Christmas card. These were loaded up, with the help of a group of our Year 11 students, ready to take to homeless individuals via the 'United Blackpool Outreach Team' (led by ex Hodgson Student Chris Conway MBE!) over the Christmas week.
This was no small task to organise, and each student and staff member has been a ‘Hodgson hero’ for making a positive impact by providing such vital community support. We congratulate Mrs. King on another successful year of the Hodgson Academy ‘backpack appeal’, and thank Amazing Graze and United Blackpool for the outstanding work they do throughout the year. Explore United Blackpool and Amazing Graze’s life-changing work by clicking on the links.
Hodgson at Christmas
Normally, we host the Annual Senior Citizen's Christmas Party, which is a highlight of our year. As we were unable to host the event in 2020, Miss. Smith, Assistant Head of Art, Design & Technology and Mrs. Hardy, PA to the Headteacher, decided to deliver the party to our local Senior Citizens instead! Together, Mrs. Hardy and Miss. Smith put together 18 Christmas Hampers to be delivered to the residents of local care homes whom we usually invite to the event. The hampers contained cheese and crackers, mince pies, Christmas cakes, biscuits and wine - in addition to playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, puzzle books and colouring pages for the residents to enjoy.
Our wonderful cleaning and site team also worked hard to make a difference to those less fortunate in our local area. Together, they gathered three boxes of food and essentials for the National Food Bank on Dickson Road. One of these food boxes was a special Christmas box filled with festive goodies and treats. The site staff are grateful for the snowball effect of generosity this started, and now plan to provide a food box to the National Food Bank every month! The team also took part in the Rotary Club’s 'Children at Christmas’ appeal at Marton’s Tesco; a ticket is taken from the Christmas tree, and a toy donated for that child. The Hodgson clean team provided six toys to six individual children in our local community! These efforts helped raised staff morale during a strange time, and the team felt it brought them together in a true spirit of Christmas and giving. We wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to our esteemed clean team for these acts of kindness, and for keeping Hodgson clean and safe all year round.
Following the very sad loss of our student and friend Louie Jones, Hodgson Academy united in fun and creative ways to fundraise for vital Leukaemia research and Save the Children. The ideas and responses from our students were utterly inspiring:
Two of our students Ava Parker (11H) and Alex Leen (11H) arranged a staff talent show in order to raise funds through 50p votes. A selection of staff entered some highly entertaining and diverse videos, which were showcased during form-time, then voted for by each form. We are proud to announce that Dr. Thagia, Teacher of Science, won with his rendition of ‘Stand by Me’- performed in Reindeer antlers! The runners up were Mr. Moyle, Mr. Branker and Mrs. Foley. Thank you to all teachers who took part, each student who voted, and Mr. Smith for supporting Ava and Alex to create such an entertaining and successful fundraiser! The money raised for Louie's Research Fund through this single event was £444. Ava and Alex: Hodgson Academy are so very proud of you.
With our non-uniform/’Christmas jumper day’ fundraiser on the final day of term, the school raised a staggering £1,237, which has been split between Save the Children & Louie's Research Fund.
On that note, would also like to thank Mrs. Duggan for her organisation of Christmas Bingo, which collected £360 for Louie's Research Fund! Mrs. Duggan also ensured that we still had a Christmas assembly (video!) to remember, with beautiful performances from our talented dancers, and a special Christmas message from Reverend Martin Keighley at St. Chad’s Church, Poulton-Le-Fylde.