THE school community rallied around at Deerpark Primary last week to support vital cancer research and raise awareness with a race throughout the day.

Children and staff, who were joined by pupils from neighbouring Lochies, hosted their very own Race for Life, an initiative by Cancer Research UK.

They raised an incredible £3,368 running and walking a combined 605km in the process.

Pupils from P6-7 organised the event as they were keen to help tackle the disease upon hearing that their class teacher’s mum had been diagnosed.

Kate Wyman, who teaches the class has also done her bit recently when she completed Race for Life Stirling last month.

She told the Advertiser: “I recently found out my mum had been diagnosed and told the class because they had to be aware of what I was dealing with.

“They decided straight away they wanted to do something.

“They had a lot of questions to start with: ‘Why is there no cure?’.”

Weeks of planning followed with the children engaging in all aspects of organisation, picking up skills without even realising.

They reached out to Tesco which provided fruit and water for the day and arranged for bunting, banners and balloons, courtesy of the Wee County Cancer Research UK Fundraising Group.

Small fundraising ideas like a “guess the bear’s birthday” stall (pictured) helped bring some money in and many young people looked for sponsorship donations ahead of the big day with thanks going to parents for getting involved.

It is often said that everyone knows someone who has been touched by cancer and that was evident in the classroom, Miss Wyman adding: “When we started talking about it, every single one of the new somebody who had been affected by cancer.

“They had either lost grandparents or had a next door neighbour [die to the disease].”