Students raise more than £11,000 for local charities

Money raised for Northamptonshire charities from events organised by Events Management students has totalled over £11,945 during the last academic year.

Events Management students organise live events each year, designed to support Northamptonshire charities with their fundraising efforts. The students work with several local charities to design, plan, market, and operate the events, giving them vital practical experience, alongside their academic studies on the course.

Over the last year, the students from the first, second, and third years have organised a range of virtual fundraising events to support charities in Northamptonshire.

With in-person and large-scale fundraising events not permitted, some charities have been worried about how they would keep momentum with their fundraising efforts. The students used their creativity to run a varied programme of virtual and covid safe, events, including a student vrs lectures quiz night, tapas cooking session with a chef, and The Flash Fringe Festival, to name but a few.

Charities that benefited included The Hope Centre, Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, Cynthia Spencer Hospice, NorPIP, and Northampton Association for the Blind.

Final year student, Victoria Pshenchenko, who was part of the team of students who organised a virtual escape room said: “I’ve loved organising this fundraising event for the Northamptonshire Association For The Blind, and I’m pleased we’ve been able to raise money to support the charity’s important work. It has been a fantastic chance to put my academic skills into practice in the planning of the event, this opportunity was one of the things that attracted me to the course at Northampton.

Claire Leer, Senior Lecturer in Events Management and Tourism, said: “I’m incredibly proud of all of the hard work the students have put into organising these assessed events. It’s been a tricky year for the students to plan and run events, but they’ve embraced virtual events management, and come up with some great virtual and covid safe events. They’ve also supported some wonderful local charities to continue to provide their vital services for the people of Northamptonshire.

“I would also like to thank the local charities for supporting our students to demonstrate their practical events skills, by offering students a real world, client /event manger working relationship. Thanks, should also go to Lee and Diana from the University’s Residential Life team, who supported the students and allowed them to take over their student communication channels to promote their events.”

For more information on Event Management, please visit the course page.