All you need is love

It comes once a year. A day to celebrate someone you love, whether it be a friend or a family member. But why limit it to just a day? We decided to spread the love over a week, granted a bit late, but better late than never. As a team, we organised an event where any student or teacher could gift chocolates to someone else within the school. It was a huge success, and we managed to raise over £300 towards the Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal. But it did not come without a few obstacles.

When we first set up the stall that Tuesday morning, we were worried about losing more money than we were making, there was no guarantee that people would be willing to buy the chocolates since Valentine’s Day had already passed. Not only that but we also had no physical product to present to people as we were still in the midst of designing the packaging. However, the first day went better than expected, and we even had to order more chocolates.

Then came Wednesday and Thursday. A rise in orders was expected as the word of the event got out but there was a drastic increase compared to Tuesday, and it was a busy day. We assumed it would have been less busy on Thursday but, to our surprise, we ended up getting more orders than both Wednesday and Tuesday combined. During both break and lunch, there was not a moment where there was no one was at the stall. It caused a lot of noise and commotion at the time but in the end, it was worth it, and the event was a success.

However, that was not the end. Next came the difficult part. Assembling the chocolates to the ‘rose’ design. This took a lot of time. We had hundreds of orders and only a dozen Prefects. Due to the large volume of chocolates required, we had to delay the delivery date to Monday. Thankfully, we also had the help of other sixth-form students, and together we were able to put together the finished pieces. Then came the delivery. Monday was incredibly hectic, trying to organise every form group in the school and plan the delivery routes; we ended up only managing to deliver a few. Therefore, the receiving of the chocolates had to spread throughout the week but eventually, they all arrived at the giftee in one piece.

And that is the end of this Valentine’s story. It took a lot of work to make this event happen, but it was a wonderful experience and as the Student Leadership Team, we hope we made a positive impact. It was great to see the strong community and sense of altruism within Barnhill and hopefully, we will see these values again during future events.

Thank you for reading,

Celine , Head Girl of Barnhill