RAISING funds for a needy cause is something the parents and pupils at Hall Park County Primary School, Lytham, really are top of the class at.

When asked by the McMillan Windmill Appeal to front the campaign for the new cancer unit at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, the charitable school immediately offered the services of their new Millennium Hall recently completed at a cost of £46,000.

And most of the money raised for this was generated by the parents themselves as headteacher Christine Jenkinson told the Citizen: "We have no parents teachers association as such so we set up a committee called Project 2000 to find the money ourselves.

"We desperately needed the extra space for extra lunch-time activities for the children and weekend sports when the fitted units and worktops will come in most useful for tea and coffee facilities. "Some of the funds came from the school budget but the majority was raised by the parents themselves from various activities such as jumble sales etc."

And now the generous school has offered to use the hall for their efforts in the McMillan campaign.

Mrs Jenkinson continued: "Our children are keen to share in the appeal for Blackpool Victoria Hospital and we pledge to hold a fundraising event every month, starting off with a raffle at the opening of our Millennium hall this month.

"The children will be encouraged to have group or individual efforts and already a wide variety of ideas have been suggested."

And Hall Park County Primary kicked off their promise in style with a cheque for £200 presented to director of fundraising Ramesh Gandhi at the school last week.

Scheduled for the coming months are a non-uniform day and an organ concert in November.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.