A teacher at the school which lost pupils in the Grenfell disaster has raised nearly £1.5 million to help those affected by the fire.
Haley Yearwood, Year 8 director of learning at Kensington Aldridge Academy (KAA), set up a Just Giving page hours after the fire started.
It has raised £1,418,245 from 36,323 donors which will be handed over to Family Action, the same charity chosen by getwestlondon to distribute the funds its readers raised in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Within a day of the fire, the page had raised £660,000. Ms Yearwood said at the time: “As I watched the news at 5am, I just wanted to make sure residents affected were well cared for after the tragedy.
Grenfell in the news
“Our school is in the heart of a fantastic community. The response so far has been overwhelming as money continues pouring in.”
The charity said it was honoured to be chosen by Ms Yearwood and explained how the money would be spent.
A spokesman said: “In accordance with Haley’s original vision the funds will be spent on both short-term and long-term support for the individuals and families affected by the fire.
“In the short term we will be establishing a grants scheme in order to disburse £750,000 of the monies raised very quickly to those affected.
“This grants scheme will be open within the next few days and will build on our recent experience of making financial grants to those affected by the fire.
“The rest of the funds raised will be used to fund a long term responsive service providing emotional and practical support to the Grenfell community.”
The service will operate for a minimum three years and be fully running by January, she added.
Family Action chief executive David Holmes said: “We are very grateful to Haley for choosing to work with Family Action and for trusting us to disburse the £1,418,245 that was donated by 36,323 very generous people.
“These funds will enable us to provide immediate financial support to those affected by the fire through financial grants and then a longer term support service to help them with the issues and challenges they will continue to face over the next few years as they rebuild their lives.
“The grants service will go live very shortly and we will be making further announcements about the launch of this service in the next few days.
“Family Action is honoured to be trusted with the effective distribution of the monies raised and we are absolutely committed to providing excellent services in the weeks, months and years to come to the Grenfell community.
“This is the best way that we can honour the generosity of those 36,323 donors and do justice to Haley’s original vision.”
The KAA building, in Silchester Road, has remained closed since the fire.
In September it opened a temporary school building next to Ark Burlington Danes Academy in Scrubs Lane, White City, where its Year 7, 8 and 9 students had their lessons for the final five weeks of the summer term.
Keep up to date with the latest news in west London via the free getwestlondon app.
You can even set it to receive push notifications for all the breaking news in your area
Available to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android now.
