Recently Urmston Grammar School held a dodgeball tournament to raise money for charity. The event was organised by a Sixth Form student, Fineness Amachi, to fundraise for a charity called SOS. Students in the Sixth Form were encouraged to participate and tickets were available for any students that wanted to watch.

The funds raised from the event went to SOS, a charity dedicated to serving the community in a number of ways, such as soup kitchens, blood drives and hunger appeals. Fineness chose this charity because of their great work for mental health which includes a twenty-four-hour helpline that is not only supportive but anonymous, saying, “I used to call there a lot and they were always friendly and really nice, so it was quite personal to me.”

The event was a great success, and more than two hundred pounds were raised. Though she noted that the event was very stressful to organise, particularly at first, and slightly last minute, Fineness stated that she was satisfied with the result and was glad to see people taking part and having fun. She also added that if she were to organise a similar event in the future, she would include the younger years as they would be more eager to participate. However, she said that though she wanted to be involved in charity events in the future she would not necessarily want to organise something by herself again and would be happy just take part and even participate in the games herself.

Overall, the tournament attracted well-deserved attention to the charity and Fineness did brilliantly in organising it. It was for a good cause and reflected the values of the school, showing pride, participation and empathy.