William Howard School raises over £350 for Turkey -Syria appeal

Off the back of raising £100 with her own bake sale in Wigton, William Howard School's English teacher Clare Donohue was determined to get the school involved in helping the crisis appeal.

This determination came from her own experience of the Izmit earthquake in 1999, which tragically killed 17,000 people and injured 40,000 more.

Clare raised £100 for the appeal with her bake sale in Wigton (Image: Clare Smyllie)

She said: "It was on August 17 at 3:01 in the morning. I had just returned to Istanbul. I wasn't supposed to be there but it was somebody's birthday so I came back a week early.

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"I was in a 12-storey building on the third floor. I was quite new to Turkey and did not speak much Turkish and the whole building started shaking.

"My neighbours started knocking on my door shouting 'deprem deprem' and that was it.

"For years after that I could not go on the underground or stand staying in enclosed spaces - it was just awful."

Clare also has a personal connection with Syria after her time teaching Syrian refugees before becoming a teacher at William Howard School.

Staff and students enjoyed the Turkish treats on offer at the bake sale (Image: William Howard School)

In total the bake sale, which took place on Tuesday, February 14, raised £367 for the Red Cross and DEC's Turkey-Syria earthquake appeal, a triumph for all involved and Clare shared how eager her students were to get involved.

"They all knew that I had been in an earthquake and so they wanted to do anything that they could do to help.

"The kids did it."

Clare and her team raised a phenomenal amount (Image: William Howard School)

Clare also thanked the families connected to the school who supplied the sale with traditional Turkish dishes such as pogca, borek, baklava and kek.

Clarabelle, Elaina and Isla were just three of the students invloved in the bake sale and explained why they wanted to do it.

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Clarabelle said: "It was just a massive cause that was changing a few lives and I really wanted to raise something to change what was happening.

Baklava provided by one of the school's Turkish families was a popular item on the day (Image: William Howard School)

"I have family in Turkey and they have been going down to the epicentre so I thought it was nice to help out here as they are helping out over there."

Finally, Isla said: "I thought it was really tragic what happened over there and it felt like such an easy thing to do to make such a big impact."