By KATH GANNAWAY
YARRA Junction Primary School students Cougar Cowan and Tahlia Thompson turned a looming fad into a successful fund-raiser to generate $765 to purchase netball rings for the school.
The girls, who received the school’s Leader of the Term Award for their initiative, got in early on the loom band craze and worked their clever fingers overtime making the popular bands to sell to friends and family as well as at local sporting events.
“I play netball every Friday at the Yarra Centre and wanted to be able to train at school but our netball rings broke,” Cougar said.
“We wanted to raise as much money as possible to put towards new netball equipment,” she said.
Tahlia was just as keen to hone her netball skills and together the girls made hundreds of the wrist bands and sold them for $1 each.
School netball coach Kate Cairns said the school has five teams in the Yarra Junction Junior Netball Club and praised the initiative shown by Cougar and Tahlia.
“They did it all off their own bat. It’s an amazing feat for two young girls who are only in grade five,” she said.
The girls said while it was great fun making the bands, they also had a lot of fun time selling them and seeing the dollars mounting towards their new netball equipment.
“We sold a lot at school but also at the cricket and basketball and people were really supportive, buying more than one band a lot of the time,” Tahlia said.
