Even though this year has been tough, that has not stopped an incredibly determined woman from helping and supporting the community in any way she can, and I was lucky enough to interview her recently. She told me what she had learnt is that ‘there are so many willing people, they just need a cause to support’.   

Lydia Loxton is a kindergarten teacher and Charities Coordinator at The Roche School. ‘As and when a parent or a member of staff pitches something and says look, I feel strongly about this, can we raise extra money for it?’, Lydia brings it to fruition and this year she says that ‘there is lots going on’.

Every summer at the Roche School they organise an event called Run for Us, which is a huge fundraising event, usually raising between £12,000 and £15,000. They use Wandsworth Park as the circuit and the children have slots throughout the day ‘where they try and do as many laps as they can and parents and family members sponsor [them]’ either as a one-off donation or per lap.

The school has four houses and every academic year, each house supports a different charity that they raise money for, with the money being split equally across the four charities. Normally, the school changes charities each year. However, due to Covid, they couldn’t hold the Run for Us event this year and so, are sticking to the same charities for a second year in a row. They hope it will happen next summer as it is a big fundraising event for them.

She told me that even though all charities receive the same amount of money it is also a competition between the houses to see which raises the most money. This is in effort to ‘make it as exciting as possible’. She also explained that they hold a big assembly at the end of the academic year when they know how much money they have raised for that whole year and they bring in a representative for each charity, who explains what they are going to spend the money on.

She believes it is vital for children to be getting involved at such a young age as it is so important that they learn about all these different charities and each charity has a specific lesson to teach them. In talking about one of this year’s charities, the homeless charity Centrepoint, she explained that ‘The Roche School is a private school and so the average child here is very privileged, so it is really important that they learn to understand how lucky they are to have something as basic as a roof over their head’. She said that ‘It’s just a really good way of educating children about compassion’.

The other three charities for this year are: Learn2Love2Read, Oaklands School and Shooting Star Chase Children’s Hospice, which she explained can all teach children about compassion and understanding their privilege and the difficulties some people face, including life-limiting illnesses. She hopes that one day because of these experiences when these children are older and going on their gap years that they will ‘do something where they travel and do something that’s really good even if it’s for a short period of time’.

We talked about how this year along with so many things, fundraising has been impacted by coronavirus and Lydia explained that ‘Every year normally we invite the charities throughout the year to come in and do talks to educate everyone on what they do. But because of Covid we have done that as best we can but they all kind of ‘come in’, via Zoom instead’.

Whilst the school has not been able to hold cake sales, they have held Foodbank Friday (where every Friday students donate food and products that go to Dons Local Action Group) and they are holding an internal Christmas Fair at the school to try and raise some more money.

She acknowledges that the families at the school are in a very privileged position but says ‘sometimes it is just their attitude… and because of Covid I think people are more willing than ever to do their bit if they are in a position where they can’.

The school also supports an orphanage in Kenya. When I asked Lydia, she told me that one of the things she loves most about her charity work is being able to go to the orphanage and see how the money is spent. On one occasion she told me that she used some of the money raised to take the whole orphanage (around 70 children and 10 adults) to an elephant sanctuary and even though it had always been only a ten-minute drive from the orphanage, none of the children had ever been able to go before.

She also appreciates the ability to be a consistent support to this specific orphanage. She knows they have a lot of volunteers, ‘that come, they do their bit, and they leave’, but with her they know that she is going to keep coming back, which is really important to them.

I finally asked her what her one message to readers would be and she told me that it would be to be compassionate as ‘there is always going to be someone who is better off than you but there is always going to be someone that is less fortunate than you and you should always just try and do your bit’. She reminded me that ‘there are a lot opportunities out there, it is just if you have the luxury of time and you are willing’.

So, if you want to learn more about the charities that the school supports and how to donate, they can be found here - https://therocheschool.com/house-system/