Penny & Sinclair Donates £1,000 to Friends of Trinity School
School trips and a sensory garden are on the cards for Trinity Primary School thanks to the support of local estate agency Penny & Sinclair. Last Friday morning, James Donigan from Penny & Sinclair presented the Friends of Trinity School (FOTS) with a cheque for £1,000. The money will go towards the continual improvement of the school along with enrichment opportunities for students, including a trip to the Oxford Science Museum.
Penny & Sinclair have been sponsoring Trinity School for a number of years now, driven by ex-pupil and Director for Penny & Sinclair, James Donigan. Since their Henley branch opened, the estate agency have been donating £200 of every house sale or let within catchment of the school to FOTS. There have also been a variety of further fundraising events sponsored by Penny & Sinclair, including the Henley to Paris bike ride, and the Friends of Trinity School Ball.
Speaking on why Penny & Sinclair chose to support Trinity School, James Donigan said, “There is a personal link here. I came to the school over 30 years ago from abroad, and the friends I made here, well one of them lives about five doors up and is my best friend to this day! His son and daughter are here, and I’m Niamh’s godfather, so there is a real personal, local link to the school.”
Nicola Nott, Co-Chair of FOTS, noted that Penny & Sinclair’s donation is even more crucial at the moment due to the restrictions the pandemic has placed on FOTS’ fundraising capabilities. “It’s been particularly important because we haven’t been able to fundraise properly in the last two years because of Covid,” she explained. “So it’s fantastic. We sat down the other day and worked out our priorities and what we wanted to spend it on, and one of the things is that we want to get the children out more on school trips. We’re already funding a trip to the Oxford Science Museum in January with it. We’re also going to make a Sensory Garden for the front of the school. We’re able to support the school in lots of different ways, and this has been particularly great.”
Friends of Trinity School is a committee of parents volunteers, whose primary aim is to raise money for the school. Their current goal is to send each child on at least two school trips over the next year, and have so far raised £8,000 towards this objective. The money donated by Penny & Sinclair goes a long way towards making this goal a reality.
Beatriz Melero, Headteacher at Trinity School, said, “The school is indebted to the work that FOTS do in raising money. They’re very proactive, and they’re very passionate about the children and their education. The money they raise, we can then use to go back into the school for the children and to provide them with those wider experiences, such as the Black History Month, and other things that we want to do. As a school, a huge thank you to Penny & Sinclair, and also to FOTS for their drive and determination in raising money and widening opportunities for our youngsters.”
