Quest Professional students celebrate raising £18,000 for children’s charity at glittering graduation ceremony

In a glittering ceremony held on Friday night in the splendour of the Plaisterers’ Hall in the City of London, Quest Professional students celebrated the dual achievement of graduating from their diploma level business courses as well as raising a total of £18,000 over the last year for degenerative childhood disease charity Action for A-T.

The students presented a cheque for £18,000 to Chief Executive for Action for A-T Sean Kelly, who praised the hard work of students in raising the money through a mixture of fundraising efforts, including completing a sky dive, Tough Mudders and charity runs, all culminating in two events at the Vanilla Club in Soho and Beaufort House in Chelsea. These events, organised and planned entirely by the students as a crucial element of their course portfolio, raised an impressive total of £11,000 for Action for A-T.

A rare genetic degenerative disease, Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T) affects multiple systems of the human body leading to deterioration of motor skills, involuntary movements, abnormal eye movements, and difficulty with speech. Children are usually confined to a wheelchair by the second decade of life and need assistance with everyday tasks. A-T is life-limiting, with those affected generally living until their twenties.  There is currently no cure for A-T and no treatments to slow down or stop the progression of the disease.        

Quest Professional, based in Belgravia, has been working with Action for A-T since 2014. The relationship originated when former Quest HR consultant Emily Read found out that her daughter Evie, had A-T. As a business college focused on equipping A-level and university leavers with the business acumen, employability and interview skills required to fast-track aspiring students into the world of work, all Quest students are required to organise an event for the charity using the skills they receive over the course of their training to plan, run and evaluate their projects.

Claire Granados, Principal at Quest Professional commented on this year’s fundraising projects, “We are immensely proud of all of our students for the time and effort they dedicated to this year’s fundraising initiatives. By planning and running their own event for Action for A-T our students are given the opportunity to put the skills they learn throughout the year into practice, gaining crucial insight into event planning in the real world – an experience which will prove invaluable in their future careers. A huge congratulations to all of the students.”

Sean Kelly, Chief Executive at Action for A-T said, “It has been a privilege to work with Quest Professional students for the last four years. In this time they have proven themselves capable of remarkable achievements having raised a total of over £110,000 for research into the devastating childhood condition known as Ataxia Telangiectasia. We are so grateful to all those students who took part in the various fundraising initiatives and to Quest Professional for their continued and valued support”.