Ross High School pupils support the gift of Wish granting!

S2 pupils from Ross High School in Tranent, Scotland - Megan Shaw, Rosemary Morrison, Erin Fettes, and Isla Fraser - have secured a £3,000 grant to create magical memories for local children living with life-threatening or terminal illnesses.The team chose to support local children’s charityWhen You Wish Upon a Star through their Youth Philanthropy Initiative programme that is delivered within the academic year.

The YPI programme is championed by the pupils who take part through teamwork, research, creativity and fun competition. Supporting pupil development in gaining new skills and builds confidence through raising awareness of social issues in their community that matter the most to them. The groups were challenged to research charities who address these social issues such as mental health, isolation and physical wellbeing.

Megan, Rosemary, Erin & Isla delivered a powerful and emotive presentation about When You Wish Upon a Star and its work within local communities and demonstrated how a £3000 grant would impact the charities mission of granting Wishes. The group have visited the Wish office in Musselburgh and the charities only fundraiser in Scotland, worked with volunteers and supported a recently granted Taylor Swift Wish in Edinburgh with friendship bracelets being made as a gift to the charities Wish child who attended the concert at Murrayfield on Sunday 9th June.

Judith King Scotland Regional Fundraiser said:

“We are so proud of our YPI Wish granters. They have been incredibly engaged with their project and our powerful wish granting work. Their presentation was outstanding, it’s no mean feat to present in front of a S1 year group, their peers, teachers, charity representatives, family members AND the judging panel, the girls excelled!We are truly honoured to have been chosen as their local charity of choice to support. We are thrilled that they won their school final and secured a wonderful £3000 grant to support local Wishes being granted and where precious lifelong memories will be forged for our families.

We are excited to have more support from the team in the coming months.. watch this space!

A huge congratulations to Ross High School and all the student finalists who raised crucial awareness of their chosen charities their YPI final was exceptional”

Megan, Rosemary, Erin & Isla said:

“We chose When You Wish Upon a Star because we believe every child deserves to smile. During our YPI course we had to think of effective ways to be able to directly support the children that the charity supports such as volunteering and supporting Wishes being granted. We hope that the £3000 will go towards a magical experience that a family will never forget and we look forward to supporting the charity in the future”

Nicola Campbell,History Teacher and YPI Lead, Ross High School: 

“S2 Citizenship classes at Ross High School have been learning about Social Issues and the issues that these cause personally and socially across our communities.

Part of the course had students complete work with the Wood Foundation's Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI). S2 classes worked in groups to select a Social Issue, find and connect with a charity who supports the social issue and compete with one another to win a £3000 donation for their selected charity.

This is the first year that YPI has been part of the S2 curriculum - we were incredibly proud of the maturity, compassion and empathy that students demonstrated during their work. Six finalists were chosen from the year group at the School Final on Friday 24th of May. The standard and quality of all finalists was amazing!

We are so proud to hear of the work that Megan, Erin, Isla and Rosemary have already untaken with 'When you Wish Upon a Star' and can wait to hear more about the impact that their work will have on the charity.. Mr James Holtom who supported the girls through the YPI programme commented that the girls were enthusiastic from the beginning and that their success is a testament to the good work that they did on their presentation.

We would like to thank all charities who supported the YPI programme this year - through video calls, phone calls, emails, in person visits and attending our charity fayre.”