A conversation about porridge prompted two thoughtful school friends to collect more than 300 Christmas selection boxes.
Marc Paterson and Nieve Neal, who are both in primary three at Rashielea Primary, collected the sweet treats to help those less fortunate than themselves at Christmas.
Marc’s mum Katerina said she’d been talking to him about children who aren’t as lucky as him after he complained about having too much milk in his morning porridge.
She said: “He was slagging me off and I said, ‘you don’t know how lucky you are’ and spoke to him a bit about food banks and how they help people.
“He went and got money out his piggy bank and said he wanted to buy food for the food bank. Then he went to school and he and Nieve were chatting about it.
“The next thing they said they wanted to do a collection of selection boxes.
“We helped them make posters, we put it on Facebook and the school put out an appeal to all the parents.”
Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
Katerina and Marc’s dad Stephen as well as Nieve’s mum Katherine were in charge of collecting all the donations in their spare rooms.
And it wasn’t till they put it all together that they realised they’d collected more than 300 selection boxes, Christmas chocolate boxes and chocolate Santas.
They decided to split the collection between EBI Unites, which runs a foodbank for Erskine, Bishopton and Inchinnan, and Women’s Aid in Paisley.
Katerina added: “We are all super proud of them. The fact they’ve been so thoughtful, it’s a totally unselfish thing to do.
“We keep telling them how amazing they are and what they’ve done. We’d like to thank everyone who donated to their appeal, our friends, family, colleagues and everyone at the school.”
The seven-year-olds have been friends since they started at Rashielea Primary School in Erskine.
And staff at the school are very proud of their achievements too.
Acting depute head Danielle Steedman said: “It’s nice to hear during these hard times there is still lots of good things happening out there!
“Marc and Nieve in Primary 3 decided off their own back to collect selection boxes for EBI Unites and Women’s Aid.
“They collected over 300 which was way over their expectation.
“They thought they would collect a few so were blown away by the generosity and kindness from the school community who donated these.”
Download the FREE Renfrewshire Live app now for all the latest news, features and sport in your area. Available on both Android and Apple. Download here:smarturl.it/RenfrewLiveSocial
