Junior Christchurch recycling project

A coffee morning was held at the church hall in Springfield Road on Saturday to display and sell the bags, cushions, book covers and t-shirts the youngsters made using bits of unwanted fabric otherwise destined for the rubbish bin.

Organiser Sheila Richardson said: "For four days during the summer holidays the older children of the Junior Church came together to make articles from materials that would have been disposed of, or thrown away, like scraps of material.

"They stencilled t-shirts and made cushions, and basically everything here cost nothing to make, apart from the paints we had to buy for the stencilling.

"It was all about encouraging them not to dispose of goods that could be useful. I think these days the youngsters seem to have such a lot, and we have been very much a throwaway society, but now I think everybody is beginning to think more. We are being encouraged not to use plastic bags for shopping '“ in fact there are bags for sale here instead of plastic carrier bags for people to buy and hopefully enjoy.

"It was also useful because some of the youngsters have never used sewing machines and don't seem to learn to sew in schools much. They had this opportunity for four days in the holiday to come and do something different, and it didn't cost them anything to come along and use the equipment and paint. We even had a five year old who came with his mum and his sister, and he stencilled a t-shirt and made a book cover.

"It was very successful."

Money raised from the coffee morning, cake stall and sale of re-cycled goods will go towards the new Junior Church choir, which meets on Friday night, and to Rachael's House in Eastbourne.

Sheila organised the recycling project with help from Val Hames, Ellie Bancroft and Wendy Dennis.