Forty pupils from Queens High School’s RCL executive, school leaders and hostel leaders took part in the CEO SleepOut 2016 that took place on July 28 and 29.
They were part of the first group of learners to be part of the CEO SleepOut.
Ms Jacky Carter, a teacher who has been a driver behind getting the pupils to participate in the SleepOut, says the group has been amazing in answering the call for charity.
“I have been very lucky to work with a group of leaders who happily got involved in charity work,” Ms Carter said.
This was not the first time the leaders did something for charity.
In the second term they held the Johannesburg Children’s Home Drop a Box campaign.
“All I had to do was let them know about the SleepOut and explain the point of it to them and from there on it was smooth sailing,” said Ms Carter.
She said the group came on board full force and took the responsibility of making a difference.
“I feel that the leaders should do volunteer work/charity work as it sends a message to the rest of the school. The leaders should be looked up to by other learners, so getting involved like this sends out a positive message to other learners. As a result any opportunity that comes our way for volunteer work/charity work, I dive into straight away,” said Ms Carter.
She said being in involved in the SleepOut was an experience that opened the pupils’ eyes to the importance of helping others.
“The learners enjoyed themselves but not only that, they learnt the importance of helping others and more importantly learnt that it can be very humbling to do something for another person without expecting anything in return. I am still overwhelmed by how good their response was to the whole project,” said Ms Carter.
“As a school we want our learners to learn that people need to work together and that in order to work as a team you also need to help each other out. At the end of the day we hope to have our Queens learners grow up to become the best possible versions of themselves,” said Ms Carter.
All the leaders were tasked with collecting monetary donations.
They had a week and a half to complete the task and they were able to raise R4 500.
The money was used to buy supplies for Lambano Sanctuary.