From running miles along the Thames with litter pickers in hand, to distributing delectable baked goods on St Andrew’s Day, the environmental action fundraising team has been hard at work this year, raising funds for a variety of different charities with differing aims. We hope all of these endeavours will improve the environmental wellbeing of Eton and its surrounding areas.
To kick the year off, we chose to start fundraising for Blue Acre Horse Rescue. They are a charity dedicated to the rescue, care, rehabilitation, and, where possible, re-homing of abused, neglected, or abandoned horses and ponies. Most of the horses taken in come from an abused or neglected background which means, in most cases, they have no knowledge of what they may have been through. A trip was organised to Old Windsor to visit the actual charity and the horses. The E@E team got to see firsthand the impact that they would make. So, we got to work and on St Andrew’s Day, setting up the much loved “Jeu de Grenouille”. People could pay to try and score points by throwing metal disks at frog statues, in order to win prizes – namely, brownies or cake. After a successful day, we managed to raise over £500 for Blue Acre Horse Rescue.
The next charity that was chosen is Sungai Watch, a charity which aims to protect and restore rivers by installing trash barriers which catch waste. This way, they are able to better understand flaws in waste management. Each barrier leads to at least 1500kg of plastic being caught and responsibly processed. A litter-pick half marathon along the Thames was organised. This took place in conjunction with Holyport on Sunday 21st April, and the team was also accompanied by Luke Douglas-Home OE; we were kindly able to advertise the fundraiser on the OEEES (Old Etonian Environment, Energy & Sustainability Society) website. £5,650 has been donated so far, which hopefully means that a new trash barrier shall be installed, with the funds necessary to support it for an entire year. Alongside this, Grundon supported the effort by setting up information tables on Windsor Bridge to hand out flyers to the public and encourage donations alongside the E@E team – this is where the run ended.
In total, we have had a highly successful year of fundraising, and we extend a huge thank you to PFMH and KLH for their immense support in all our endeavours.
