A TEAM of volunteers from Huddersfield University has gone the extra mile for charity in a bid to make a difference to the lives of schoolchildren in Africa.
The campaigners, who are working for the Read Book Project Huddersfield, are creating a mile-long route of 50p pieces on the university campus as they push towards their £7,000 goal to enable them to transport thousands of schoolbooks to children in Tanzania.
To make themselves obvious the students collected cash in the town centre and the university grounds wearing their pyjamas.
Kirsty Maclean, 20, is helping organise the collection.
The interior design student, said: “We came up with the idea of a 50p mile because it costs just 50p to get a book to Tanzania. We managed to collect £300, so it was a very successful morning.
“As for dressing in our pyjamas; well what can we say, we are students after all!”
The Huddersfield volunteers will take all 25,000 books they have collected to Tanzania in August.
Kirsty said: “We’ll be there for six weeks and we hope to spend a few days in each of the 20 schools we visit.”
The group are raising cash for the trip through raffles, quiz nights and a walk from John o’ Groats to Land’s End in July.
Kirsty said: “My dad and brother will also be cycling the John o’ Groats to Lands End trek, so I imagine we should raise quite a bit of money from that.
“We hope to reach our £7,000 goal so we can ship over as many books as possible to schoolchildren and schools in some of the world’s poorest areas.
“They really are in desperate need of them and we are determined to help all we can.”
