MATRAVERS School held a ‘mufti day’ on Friday 22nd March to raise funds for the Kilimanjaro for MNDA campaign (Motor Neurone Disease Association), with the aim of raising £1,000. 
The Kilimanjaro for MNDA campaign will see eight football coaches and players from Frome Collegians AFC climb 5,680 metres to the summit of this mountain in tribute to Alistair Banks who died from Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in January. This charity was chosen as Alistair’s son plays for one of the Frome Collegians youth teams and he was an inspirational person to everyone who met him.
Alistair was deputy headteacher at Matravers School, and the Kilimanjaro team are extremely grateful to the school staff, pupils and families for their support in raising money for this charity, which funds and promotes global research into the disease and supports affected people.
Paige Bowyer and Lucy Hayward, year 12 senior students at Matravers School said, “The senior student team have organised this mufti day as we hope to raise lots of money for MNDA because the school had a close relationship with Mr Banks who was really inspiring to us all. We want to raise awareness of the disease and the charity who we know are doing great things to help support sufferers of MND and their families”.
Matravers’ Year 11 students, Fae Horsley and Jess Holland said, “Whilst we enjoy not wearing our uniforms for the day we want to support MNDA in memory of Mr Banks who was such an inspiration to us and lots of students at Matravers School. We hope we’ve raised lots of money to support the cause as we want Mr Banks’ memory to live on here at the school for many years to come”.
The Kilimanjaro team say, “We wish to not only raise funds for the charity but also awareness and we are delighted that so many organisations and individuals are supporting us with this campaign as it enables us to raise the profile of this disease. MND kills five people in the UK every day. It is a progressive disease that attacks the upper and lower motor neurones. Degeneration of the motor neurones leads to weakness and wasting of muscles, causing increasing loss of mobility in the limbs and difficulty with speech, swallowing and breathing. MND only affects adults and there is currently no cure.”
