3rd October 2008

As part of CRY’s Raising Awareness Week, our County Representative for Kent, James Brown, went back to his old school on Friday to talk to a group of 13-16 year olds about the charity and his story.

James’ old Sports and Economics teacher at Sevenoaks School, Alex Smith, read about the death of James’ wife Katrina in the local newspaper in 2006, and more recently about James’ latest fundraising event he undertook. That saw James and three of his friends cycle 950 miles from Land’s End to John o’Groats in July, raising over £25,000 for CRY in the process.

The presentation was a nerve-wracking experience as it was the first time James had given a talk about CRY, and furthermore it was in front of 450 pupils.

They behaved impeccably though, and listened intently for 15 minutes, as James spoke about how he became involved with CRY, and CRY’s four main aims – Raising Awareness, Screening, Research, and Support and Counselling.

As a result of the presentation and his links with the school, James is hoping that the Charity Committee will agree to nominate CRY as the Middle School’s chosen charity next term. Previous fundraising events the school has organised include a Fashion Show and ‘Servant’ auctions where pupils auction their services as servants for the day!

In addition to this, James is hoping that the school will decide to hold a screening day for its 14-18 year old students. If it does, Sevenoaks will follow in the footsteps of Eton, Millfield and the other 10 public schools which organised screening days in 2007.

CRY leaflets were handed out to all the students in the assembly, and they were asked to take them home to show to their parents, to help raise awareness of the dangers of undiagnosed heart conditions in the young.