School in a Bag

Tsunami: The Wave That Shook The World  - an ITV Documentary to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 In February, School in a Bag's Founder & CEO, Luke Simon, joined TV company, Arrow Media, on a trip back to Koh Phi Phi to recreate the story of the search for Piers and in March of this year, the same crew visited Somerset to film at Home Farm. Director Ashley Gething writes: “Tsunami: The Wave That Shook the World commemorates the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest natural disasters in history – the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Told through the stories of seven individuals in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, we document the events of that terrible day. The film follows the lives of those seven survivors in the 20 years since the Tsunami. The film charts the pain and loss they suffered, but also the remarkable ways in which they’ve rebuilt their lives. This film celebrates love and the resilience of the human spirit.” ---------------------------------- Extra context: Luke, his brother Piers, and three friends were on the island of Koh Phi Phi in 2004 when the tsunami struck. Piers sadly lost his life so Luke and their parents set-up a charity, the Piers Simon Appeal, in P’s memory. The charity has become School in a Bag through the educational work we carry out, but the PSA helped many victims following natural disasters, including many who were also affected by the Boxing Day tsunami [A special screening of the documentary will also be shown at our charity HQ in Chilthorne Domer, Somerset on Sunday 29th December followed by a Q&A with Luke Tickets can be found here: https://lnkd.in/dC3CETaK]

We’re #hiring. Know anyone who might be interested in working for our fabulous charity? 🎒🌍 Please apply in writing with a letter and a copy of your CV to clerk@schoolinabag.org. Closing date Friday 15th November 2024.

This year, we had the incredible support of CrowdComms, who built us a (brilliant) app for our biggest annual fundraiser, Home Farm Fest. It was a great asset to the festival, allowing everyone onsite access to all that was going on; from the performers across each stage, to food vendors and market traders, as well as a Festival Feed giving us an open communication channel for the first time. We even successfully ran a Flash Sale of tickets for next year's festival during the weekend! A couple of weeks ago, we did an interview with the CrowdComms team to chat about the app, and below you can have a watch to see what we thought, plus where we plan to improve and grow it for next year's festival 😁 Thank you again to the CC team for making our app come to fruition and although not here as an advertising post, we really can't recommend them enough if an app is what you're looking for!

This week we have some more very exciting news! We could write it on here, or equally keep the suspense and let the video do the talking...we've chosen the latter so you'll just have to watch it to find out 🤔

OUR 150,000th SCHOOLBAG! What an absolute pleasure to be able to bring this news to you…and to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who’s funded a SchoolBag along this journey. We've worked with many businesses who have done corporate SchoolBag packs in their offices, some who have done bike rides or treks and even a few cake sales, but they all had the same aim - and that was to raise money for more SchoolBags; to help more children with their education. We are so grateful for the support. To meet and work with the companies we have and for the time we've spent with you, to feed off the enthusiasm of the staff always makes for a fun occasion! This 150,000th SchoolBag was part of a distribution to children in schools affected by flooding in Sangar, Pakistan by our partners, Education and Life Foundation in Pakistan, thanks to funding from the Angus Lawson Memorial Trust. The SchoolBags within this consignment contained a #LifeStraw water filter, enabling children to converted flooded dirty water in to 99.99% pure filtered water - an incredible bit of kit. Here’s to many more!

Seven years ago we started working with Blake Envelopes & Packaging, a local business to our base in Somerset. Since then, they have supported us by funding (and often packing), hundreds of SchoolBags that have gone to several countries around the world. It was great fun to be in their Head Office yesterday, especially with their whole team dressed up in either school uniform or red (although this part is not compulsory!), to pack a further 200 SchoolBags. These will soon be on their way to our partners in The Gambia to be distributed, and we can't wait to be able to show photos to Blake of the recipients with their SchoolBags. CSR support from businesses has grown hugely in the last decade, and we do a lot of fantastic work with many companies both local to us and all around the UK. If working with School in a Bag is something that interests you and you can see us doing a SchoolBag pack similar to this one with Blake, then please get in touch with us! Email: hello@schoolinabag.org

Home Farm Fest is our biggest annual fundraiser, which we have been hosting on the farm where our charity HQ is based in rural Somerset, since 2006. The previous 16 festivals have helped raise over £660,000 pounds for School in a Bag! This year was our biggest one to date and for the first time included a sold out Saturday. But with the continual rising costs of putting the festival on, plus a target of £108,000 that we raised last year, it seemed a near-impossible task to raise any more. So, how did we actually do…? We’ll let the video do the reveal, but WE ARE SO EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS TOTAL! Home Farm Fest continues to thrive thanks to the unwavering support from our incredible sponsors, volunteers, performers, and attendees. The investment from our sponsors contribute significantly to the event’s infrastructure, while the dedication of our volunteers ensures smooth organisation before, during, and after the festival. Then we have all the performers who donate their time and incredible skills for our cause, and of course the festival goers. All those who buy their tickets to come along and enjoy the weekend of music and fun. Organising such an event is a collaborative effort. Our small team, along with our committee and other contributors, work tirelessly to make Home Farm Fest the special festival and successful fundraiser, it is. What happens to the money? Funds raised from Home Farm Fest greatly aid in covering the operational expenses of our charity, School in a Bag. This allows donor contributions to directly fund SchoolBags, a crucial resource for many children. This record-breaking total enables us to continue transforming the lives of children in our projects all around the world in the following ways:  Kenya: 328% increase in transition from Primary to Secondary school  India: 46% increase in attendance and 60% increase in grades  Since 2021: £353k has been invested directly in to local economies  1040 Lifestraws distributed: each providing 4000 litres of lifesaving clean water. Our charity changes the lives of thousands of children each year, giving them the chance of an education. Home Farm Fest is our biggest annual fundraiser and integral to our work, and we are already working hard towards next year’s festival! We’ve had lots of bands apply to play and hundreds of tickets have already been snapped up. Look out for info on our socials when we re-open our ticket line, if you’d like to join us for the next one, or indeed would like to become a sponsor. Here’s to HFF18 – 6th-8th June 2025!

Working with CrowdComms on our new app this year was brilliant! The team were so easy to work with, listened to everything we asked for and helped us navigate ways our ideas could be brought to fruition - always with a sense of calm and ease. The app was a fantastic addition to our festival, and biggest annual fundraiser, allowing our festival goers to create their 'own festival' by favouriting bands and acts, easily see what was going on around the festival and use the map. But what was lovely, was the 'festival feed' allowing real-time conversations to go on between us as organisers, our sponsors, traders and punters. This meant there was a real feeling of companionship across everyone. We also used it on the Saturday to launch an early bird deal for tickets for Home Farm Fest 2025, which was very successful! Thank you CrowdComms - here's to 2025!

For a few weeks of the year, we put our School in a Bag work slightly to one side (not completely!), to make way for our biggest annual fundraiser, Home Farm Fest. This is a 3-day festival held at our charity HQ in Somerset and has so far raised more than £660,000 over the 16 festivals before this year's. The 7th-9th June was a crazy weekend for us: our biggest Home Farm Fest to date, even selling out for the first time! It was fantastic to invite so many people to dance, party and enjoy themselves for three days, all whilst raising money for our cause. It's with huge thanks to our sponsors, our incredible team of volunteers, our Trustees and HFF Committee alongside suppliers, traders and workers who help us achieve this. It's also about spreading the word of our small charity and the work we do to an often new audience, who we wouldn't otherwise reach. More on how much we raised this year to follow, but in the meantime, this is Home Farm Fest 17...enjoy. https://lnkd.in/e49emF7r

👏🏼Want to be a sponsor for our biggest annual fundraiser, Home Farm Fest, for this year AND more?? ♻️We are moving to running our festival to be as sustainable as possible and want to reduce our disposable plastic cups, so please say 'hello' to these beauties!* 🥛We have space for 7️⃣ more companies who would like to sponsor our generic festival cups (these are different to our Collectors' ones that change each year and have a limited run) ℹ️ Time is of the essence, so please let us know as 🔜 as possible (by Monday 20th May at 11am) if you would like to be a sponsor! 💰To sponsor costs £1000 and you will receive 1️⃣0️⃣ Weekender camping tickets to this year's festival, advertising space, a link on our website and of course, your logo/name on our cups! 📧 Contact us NOW: hello@homefarmfest.co.uk *end design may differ slightly