Members of St Edward's Church, Goathurst congregation, children from Stay and Play and Kids Night plus their families and friends from the community raised more than £300 in pennies as part of an unusual challenge to help raise funds for a much-needed toilet at the church. Using specially designed collection points made out of toilet roll inner tubes, members of St Edward’s collected as many pennies as they could for the ‘spend a penny’ challenge. Their aim? To surround the whole church building with one continuous line of coins. And they did it!
More than 60 people aged from 0-80+ gathered to watch as the coins were laid out. A total of £336.28 worth of coins were used to completely surround the church and the event overall raised £414.92.
Revd Nicki Bradford who had the inspiration for the event said, “I have to be honest that when I thought of trying to surround the church, I was sure we would have to spread the coins out quite thinly; however, thanks to the generosity of the community we had enough to go all the way round with some to spare.”
The money will go into the SAPP fund which will be used to pay for the building of a toilet and servery extension to the church, which currently is limited in what events it can hold due to the lack of these basic facilities.
Fundraising for this project will continue over time and the church would love to hear from anyone who is interested in supporting their efforts.
