CHILDREN at Barrow Hills School have started raising money to help with transport costs for the ’Bags of Hope’ appeal, initially started by two Haslemere mothers in support of refugee children fleeing the war in Syria.

The ’bags’ appeal now has an operational team of 12 mums, and Natasha Davies, one of the main organisers, went to the school at the end of last month to talk to the whole school about the project, which only started a three weeks ago.

Pupils pledged all monies raised at the parents’ weekly ’bacon buttie Friday’sale to the cause together with an afternoon cake sale.

The fund raising is in addition to collecting the ’Bags of Hope’ for the designated collection point in Chiddingfold,

The school had collected over 200 rucksacks filled with essential items such as clothing, blankets, toiletries; books and toys for the migrant babies and children arriving in Kos and other Greek islands on a regular basis.

The filled rucksacks were taken to Chiddingfold in the school mini bus by Registrar Pauline McBrown, where they were sorted before transportation to the George Lambert & Son, storage unit in Fernhurst, which is being used free of charge.

Ultimately the bags will be shipped in two 20ft containers to Athens and onwards to the Greek Islands, by the end of October. The next few weeks will be spent raising money to pay for the transportation.

The Barrow Hills fundraising project was spearheaded by sisters Madeleine and Bethany Nugent (year eight and six respectively) and Jennifer Glover (year eight), with Emily Mason (year six) helping. All the girls have done presentations during Friday assemblies and put up posters around the school to promote this cause.

Further details on the Bags of Hope appeal can be found at www.bagof hope.org.uk