College Christmas festival raises over £1,200 for St Michael’s Hospice

Sport, Public Services, and Business students at East Sussex College Hastings transformed the Station Plaza campus into a Winter Wonderland last week to raise money for the college’s charity partner, St Michael’s Hospice.

The students worked together to plan, organise, and host their own Christmas festival on the last day of term, Wednesday 19th December, and managed to raise £1,206 on the day, with further donations still being counted.

The group invited local businesses to pitch stalls and sell a range of Christmas gift to visitors, students, and staff. Local schools came along to join in with the festivities and were able to visit Santa’s Grotto and take selfies with the Grinch.

The Christmas festival ran from 10am until 5pm and also featured Christmas carols, tasty Christmas treats, and festive face painting. The students also put on a raffle with prizes including a signed Brighton and Hove Albion football shirt, an Xbox One, and 18 holes of golf at Sedlescombe Golf Club.

Craig Ottley, Curriculum lead for Sport and Public Services at East Sussex College Hastings, said: “It was a fantastic day. The students did a great job organising everything, from hiring a marquee for Santa’s Grotto, to finding some brilliant raffle prizes.

We’d all like to say a huge thank you to the catering, hair and beauty, health and social care, and facilities team, who helped to make the event a success, and to everyone who came along to support the event with donations.”

Hannah Hildreth, Community Fundraiser, said: “St. Michael’s Hospice continue to be very grateful to the staff and students at East Sussex College for their fantastic fundraising efforts since choosing us as their Charity Partner of the Year.

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for their hard work in organising the wonderful Christmas Fair, and we were extremely impressed by the creativity of this event. Every penny raised helps the Hospice to continue to offer our care and support to Hastings and Rother.”