SOUTH SOMERSET NEWS: Take up the Pencil Challenge for School in a Bag

PEOPLE are being set a challenge by the South Somerset-based School in a Bag charity – can you make one pencil last a whole year using it as your only writing device?

The School in a Bag team, based at Chilthorne Domer near Yeovil, has come up with this great back to work/school challenge following the summer holidays to experience what some of the children they support have to contend with.

The School in a Bag is exactly what it says on the tin – it is a rucksack full of simple everyday items needed in school such as pencils, pens, exercise books, eating utensils and a water bottle.

Thousands have since been sent out to poor and orphaned children across the globe, but when School in a Bag made its first consignment of bags to Africa the team discovered that children had previously been given just one pencil by the Government to last them the whole year.

Luke Simon, founder of School in a Bag, said: “We want to see how difficult this is by challenging ourselves to use just pencil and see if we too can make it last the school year and want to see if others can do it as well.

“People can try this at school or in the office and challenge your classmates and work colleagues to do the same.”

PHOTO - TOP: School in a Bag founder Luke Simon is leading the Pencil Challenge!

Luke added: “Let’s put ourselves ever-so-slightly in the world of a child who isn’t starting school this year with a pencil case brimming with every colour pen and pencil there is.

“Let’s see what it’s like not to rush to the stationery cupboard the minute we break the tip of our pencil. Let’s see how achievable it is to be given one pencil and make it last.”

School in a Bag was created as an initiative run by the Piers Simon Appeal which was formed following the death of Preston School and Yeovi lCollege student Piers Simon in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 in Asia.

For more details about School in a Bag – look out for its Facebook page or log onto to its official website at http://www.schoolinabag.org/ .

Alternatively click on School in a Bag advert on the homepage of the Yeovil Press website.

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