Hungerford Arcade is a very proud sponsor of The Mary Hare School for Deaf Children and Young Adults. This is a charity run school and you can find out more about them and the Foundation by clicking onto thislink . For quite a long time, they have been raising funds in all kinds of ways. The children have been particularly active and raised lots of money to refurbish the swimming pool at the school which had become quite dilapidated over the years and was in desperate need of a new roof and other major works.
The difficulty was in raising funds for a refurbishment project. Had it been for a completely new swimming pool it would have made fundraising that bit easier. However, having said that, over £400,000 had been raised and yesterday, Adrian Gilmour, Hazel Browne and myself, Rita Kibble had the pleasure of attending the grand opening, representing Hungerford Arcade and Hazel who opened her beautiful garden to the public last summer and raised a lot of money for this project. It was all a great success.
It was a fabulous day with Olympic Gold Medallist, Duncan Goodhew MBE making a wonderful speech and then unveiling the plaque to officially open the pool. Duncan is an English former competitive swimmer. After swimming competitively in America as a collegian at North Carolina State University, he was an Olympic swimmer for Great Britain and won Olympic gold and bronze medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
After the unveiling of the plaque, Duncan got changed and went into the pool with some of the children (who are themselves medal winners) and coached them. There was no barrier with deafness, they understood him completely and had a fantastic time. Something they will always remember. It was wonderful to see and they were all in such awe of him and he of them.
I made a little video and hope that you like it.
Congratulations Mary Hare Foundation and to everyone who helped make this special day possible.
The difficulty was in raising funds for a refurbishment project. Had it been for a completely new swimming pool it would have made fundraising that bit easier. However, having said that, over £400,000 had been raised and yesterday, Adrian Gilmour, Hazel Browne and myself, Rita Kibble had the pleasure of attending the grand opening, representing Hungerford Arcade and Hazel who opened her beautiful garden to the public last summer and raised a lot of money for this project. It was all a great success. 