October 23, 2020 - 1230 views
The Rydal Penrhos family came together to further lend their support to our local community during an unprecedented time of crisis.
Both Prep and Senior School pupils, staff and their families generously donated a large number of items for Rydal Penrhos’ annual Harvest Food Drive, which was part of the Harvest Festival Celebrations last Friday.
There was some concern that during the COVID-19 restrictions donations may suffer because of the greater effort required to shop and collect, but in the event the offerings that came in exceeded past years and were a testament to the desire the pupils and staff had to do their bit in these difficult days, when many families are struggling severely.
All donated items were collected and taken down to St John’s Church and were on proud display during the school’s first-ever virtual Harvest Service, which was the final act of the half-term and was live-streamed on Rydal Penrhos YouTube channel.
The Service saw a host of pupil contributions from the likes of Camilla Simmons, Wilfred Jones, Noah Roberts and Amelie Skinner from the Prep School, with April Williams singing ‘Change of the Seasons’, written by her father and the school’s Director of Music, Peter Williams.
Highly decorated vocalist and Year 13 pupil Tegid Goodman-Jones sang ‘O del mio dolce ardor’ by Gluck, whilst instrumental music from the second movement of Mozart’s Clarinet concerto was performed by Niamh Cook.
Senior Head Boy Richard Wolfendale and Head Girl Anna Parry-Williams also lent their support to the event with readings, with the service overseen by the Reverend Nick Sissons, Chaplain of Rydal Penrhos.
Network Services Manager Gareth Robinson was in charge of making sure everything ran smoothly from a technical perspective.
Rev’d Sissons organised the collection and delivery of the goods on Monday 19 October 19th to Rydal Penrhos’ local Food Bank in Rhiw Rd Colwyn Bay.
Nancy, who is in charge of the volunteers at the Food Bank wrote: “I just want to say a massive thank you again to Rydal Penrhos School for your Harvest Festival donations to us.
“This will help us immensely and it’s very much appreciated. Many many thanks.”
This is the latest in a series of charitable initiatives put on by the school throughout the academic year, with their recent Hello Yellow Day raising hundreds for children’s mental health charity, Young Minds UK.
