The money to fund Pageant's activities comes from a variety of sources. On this page we list some of the ways we get our funding. If you are planning to run a sponsored event to raise funds for Pageant, then you should go to our Fundraisers' Page. If you want to make a donation, the please see our Online Donation Page. There is a list of other ways you can help Pageant on our Information Page.

Membership Fees

Membership fees provide a strong foundation to fund Pageant's general projects. All of Pageant's running expenses are taken out of membership fees, so everything raised by other methods goes 100% to Pageant's projects.

Donations and Charity Events

Online Donation We welcome individual donations and we have an online donation page where you can select to donate to one of several Pageant projects. As Pageant is a UK Registered Charity we can reclaim basic rate tax on behalf of donors who pay UK Income Tax. The online donation page and all our forms have this option, and there is also a separate GiftAid form for those sending cheques by post.

Donation by Text Message You can donate to Pageant from your mobile phone using JustTextGiving, a free service provided by Vodafone. All mobile networks pass on 100% of the amount donated to Pageant. You won't pay to send the text no matter which network you use, and there are no deductions from your free text message allowance. Simply text 'PAGE26 £10' to 70070 to donate £10 to Pageant. You can donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10, up to a total of £30 a month. You can add GiftAid by following the instructions in the reply to your text. (more information about JustTextGiving)

Shopping Online and Raising Money for Pageant If you already shop online, here is a way to raise money for Pageant at the same time as you shop. Easyfundraising is a shopping directory with over 2000 online retailers on its list. Each of these makes a donation of a small percentage of the purchase price to Pageant, but it doesn't cost you an extra penny. Also you can do online searches through a special Pageant search page, earning money for Pageant each time you click. (more information about using these services)

Legacy A sadly missed Pageant member, Elizabeth Fisher, remembered Pageant in her will with a generous donation towards the Artemisia Project, helping in the fight against malaria.

Horsham Rotary Club presented Pageant with a cheque for £1000 from their International Committee in July 2007. Our thanks to all Horsham Rotary Club members for their generosity. (more details) In October 2008, they gave us a further £200, while in July 2008 the ladies of Horsham Inner Wheel raised £650 for us by organising a Ram Roast. (see details)

Mayor of Haslemere's charity £3700 was raised for Pageant by the Mayor of Haslemere, Brian Howard, during his 2006-2007 year of office. (more details) This was used to provide 32 locally made desk units for Campama Lower Basic School.

The Boar's Head, Horsham raised £127 at an 'Out of Africa' evening. (more details)

Mannings Heath Millennium Club raised £675 for Pageant in  a ‘Last Night of the Proms’ party in 2008. (see details)

Christ Church in Braintree, Essex raised £350 for Pageant during Advent 2008. Instead of sending individual Christmas cards to each other, church members all signed one large card, and the money they would otherwise have spent on cards and postage was donated to Pageant. Contributions were linked to items in the nativity story, and to Pageant's ethical gifts scheme: Joseph - Carpentry Tools and Training; Stars - Solar Lanterns. (see Christ Church website)

Sponsorship

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Primary education in The Gambia is provided free by the state, but the family must still pay for books, food, uniform and travel. Tuition fees are charged for secondary and further education. Children often miss out on education, because their parents cannot afford to send them to school. Pageant's Sponsorship Scheme is a fundraising initiative which channels donations directly to the student. Our Sponsorship page explains how this works, the Sponsorship in Action page tells stories of some of Pageant's sponsored children, and our Sponsorship Enquiry page shows students who require sponsorship.

Ethical Gifts

Pageant has an Ethical Gifts Scheme, which operates throughout the year. There is a list of gifts ranging in value from £6.50 upward. You purchase a 'Gift Token' for your friend or relative, and schools, children or villagers in The Gambia benefit from  an ethical gift which is sure to be greatly appreciated. At Christmas we supply the Gift Tokens in a specially designed Pageant Christmas Card.

Our list of gifts includes some items offered in partnership with the Gunjur Environmental Protection and Development Group (GEPADG), which as its name suggests promotes environmental projects in the Gunjur area of The Gambia. See further information on our GEPADG page or on the GEPADG website.

Horsham Fun Days Pageant regularly takes part in the Horsham Fun Days organised by the Horsham Rotary Club, with a stall selling Gambian produce, and dispensing information.

Paintings Raffles In 2004, artist Joan Dobie donated an original watercolour 'Fishing boats coming out of Banjul at dawn'. This was raffled at the Altantic Hotel in Banjul, raising £200, which was used to buy mosquito nets for the village of Jarreng. In 2005 Pageant sent a further £1100 for nets and insecticide. £600 of this was raised by raffling paintings of The Gambia and £500 was a donation made by a member specifically for this purpose.

Vivace! Concerts In November 2007, and again in November 2008, the acclaimed Sussex choir Vivace! gave concerts in Southwater Parish Church, with their usual wide range of music; plainsong, sixteenth century, Broadway shows, rock ’n roll and African music. In 2007 they raised £350 for Pageant (see details) and in 2008 another £236 (see details) (see Vivace! website)

UK Schools

Pageant is very proud of the efforts of its younger members and the involvement of UK schools in its work in The Gambia. In this section we will tell the story of how UK schools have helped to raise money for their Gambian counterparts, and say an official 'Thank you' to some of our younger members who have been raising funds for Pageant.

Bishops Waltham Junior School - Gambian Mini-market & Worldclass Fayre

There is more about Bishops Waltham Junior School on their Pageant web page.

Chestnut Grove School

Dame Tipping School - Lent Games Fundraising

Christ's Hospital School

Ben's story In 2005, Ben, a 10 year old pupil at Warnham CE School, and his sisters had been sponsoring a child at Jarreng for some time. He then put together a Power-point presentation for his school, and organised a fund raising day, which realised £200. (see further details)

Downsend School in Leatherhead raised an amazing £4,932.94 over the 2007-2008 school year. Most was raised during a Charity Week at the end of the 2008 summer term. Pageant are still considering how best to use this money for projects in the Gambia.  (see details)

Trafalgar School Secret Market Pageant's stall at the 'secret market' held at the school in December 2008 raised £170. This will be used to support the link between Trafalgar and Kings Kid Academy in The Gambia. (more details)

There are now many UK schools helping Pageant with an even larger number of schools in The Gambia. We have produced an Index of Gambian Schools and an Index of UK Schools to bring together as much of this information as possible.

If you are thinking of undertaking some exciting challenge, then please consider raising sponsorship for Pageant's projects. We appreciate that fundraisers like to keep control of their publicity and have instant access to their latest totals for money raised, so Pageant has registered with a number of online donation services. Find out more on our fundraisers page.

Fleet Half Marathon

Steve Pitman from ERA, ran in the 2006 Fleet Half Marathon, and raised £528 in sponsorship for Pageant. This was used to provide woodworking benches at St Augustine's Upper Basic School in Banjul and to improve the classrooms at King's Kid Academy. Steve ran the Fleet Half Marathon again in 2007, raising yet more sponsorship money for Pageant. This was used to provide 3 new desk units for Campama Lower Basic School.

Comrades Marathon (South Africa)

Nigel Walsh ran the 2008 Comrades Marathon on 15 June in South Africa. This is actually an ultramarathon of 56 miles, which attracts between 10,000 and 15,000 runners to a tough, steeply undulating route from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. His sponsorship raised £726.29 in aid of the Toilets and Textbooks project, which in turn helped Kings Kid Academy with teaching materials and building new toilets. He ran the Comrades again on 24 May 2009, with the direction reversed, Pietermaritzburg to Durban. He raised £726.29 which again went to Kings Kid Academy. For further information, see Nigel's fundraising page.

Marine Corps 10k race (USA) - Chester Marathon

Sarah Hayes ran the Marine Corps 10km race in Washington DC on 25 October 2009. She raised £1535.00 in sponsorship, which she generously used to help Barra/Essau Upper Basic School on the North Bank in The Gambia. In October 2011, she ran the Chester Marathon dressed as a beer bottle. This feat gained her a Guinness World Record for the 'Fastest Marathon Dressed as a Bottle (Female)'. She also raised a substantial amount of sponsorship which will help Pageant's work in The Gambia. For further information, see Sarah's web page.

To Africa in an old car!

What has driving an old car across Africa got to do with Pageant? Several teams in various Challenges ending at Banjul have raised sponsorship money for Pageant, or helped in other ways.

The Bamako Run was introduced in 2007 for teams who were unable to get into the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge. It follows the same route as the PBC to Mauritania, but then heads inland to Bamako, the capital of Mali. This being a new venture into unknown territory, there was a preliminary expedition to reconnoitre the route, known as the T4 Challenge, and a team in this raised money for Pageant. Read more about the teams who helped Pageant on our 2006 Challenge page, our 2007 Challenge page and Shap Ahoy's T4 page

The 2008 Banjul/Bamako Challenge combined the two destinations. Five groups of competitors drove to Bamako and four groups to Banjul. Team Transplant Titans, in Group 9, left for Banjul on 11 January 2008.  Hany Riad and Titus Augustine are transplant surgeons at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and as well as helping the Kings Kid Academy for Pageant, they raised funds for transplant research projects. Two other teams also helped Pageant. Ginger & Turk, in Group 9, drove a Range Rover from Yorkshire to Banjul. Mellow-Yellow, in Group 8, drove a Mercedes 280CE from Dublin to Banjul. At about the same time but not part of any official challenge, Tim Lovatt (ex Shap Ahoy) and three friends drove two Toyota Landcruisers to Timbuktu in the 4Ts Adventure. At the end, both cars were sold and the proceeds given to Pageant. See our 2008 Challenge page for more news and information on all of these teams.

Live on a Pound a Day

Frances Boswell and Rachel Page lived for just £1 a day for a working week during March 2012. This bought all of their food and drink, and they refused to accept any edible freebies! Rachel lived off value pasta with 17p curry sauce (complete with lumps!!!) and Frances survived on cheap bread with (furry) value jam!! They also ate baked beans, jacket potatoes, carrots, chopped tomatoes and eggs as special treats. They raised about £600 in sponsorship. This paid for paint, palettes, sponges, paint brushes, scissors, paper, tissue paper, feathers, glue, hoops, balls, bean bags, sacks, and much more, for use during their trip to The Gambia in April 2012, when they will be giving 'fun' classes to children in nursery schools. [more info]

Pageant would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped to raise money for Pageant's projects. Unfortunately we can't list everyone, but the tables below show larger amounts from various fundraising events and larger single donations.