We were proud and humbled on Wednesday as our pupils, parents and staff joined together to support the humanitarian aid effort in Ukraine by bringing their donations to school.

With the help of the Queenswood Bursar, Mr Ian Williams, and Mr Kevin Mills from the Caretaker team, your much needed donations of essential hygiene products, warm bedding and baby supplies were loaded into two of the school’s vehicles ready to be driven to Westminster Lodge in St Albans.

As well as bringing items from home, three of our Lower Sixth pupils – Lilly, Tanya and Olivia – organised a supermarket shopping trip to buy essential products for the campaign with funds raised from their Waller House supper.

Once the donations were all loaded, they were driven by Kevin and Miss Yaffe to the collection point in St Albans where pupils and staff from St Columba’s College were on hand to sort and pack them on to a 22 tonne HGV bound for Romania. From Romania the donated items will be loaded on to smaller vehicles and moved onwards to Ukraine.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who donated items to the appeal, your compassion and generosity is hugely appreciated.