Clubbing together and helping others

New school group will fundraise for charities

A group of school pupils held the first meeting of a new club – and immediately set about helping others.

The Rotary Club of Paisley invited young people at Paisley Grammar School to set up an ‘ Interact’ organisation in a bid to mirror its own work.

And one of the first things the new club did was to support Scottish Action on Mental Health (SAMH).

Diane Mitchell, assistant governor of the Rotary Club of Paisley, said: “This is like rotary for secondary schools, so they appoint their own president, vice-president, chair, secretary and treasurer.

“We had the office bearers there and the ordinary members as well.

“We’re going to get them badges so that they feel more official.

“And they talked about what charity they were going to support, so they decided on SAMH, the mental health charity.

“They are going to support both a community and an international charity, and they started with the community one.

“So, they were discussing ideas for fundraising such as a ceilidh and other events like that.”

The Interact group will go back to its next meeting with other ideas and decide on fundaisers they are going to organise.

Mrs Mitchell added: “They are hopefully going to get teachers involved as well.

“They were very enthusiastic, very keen. They are going to meet every week for continuity.”

Interact will be a great way of helping the young people mature, Mrs Mitchell added.

“They’ll get leadership skills and organisational skills.

“It will boost their confidence and esteem, all of the positive health and wellbeing benefits really,” she said, adding:

“Also, when they eventually go for jobs, and they’ve been in the position of an office-bearer in an organisation like rotary – it’s a positive thing for them.

“They all spoke at the meeting and gave their ideas. They are a great bunch.”

They are going to support a community and international charity