Pennies donations add up to help children with learning difficulties relax with sensory play

Between May 2011 and March 2013, Kids Out benefited from donations made by Travelodge customers adding a small donation to their online booking. In this period, customers raised well over £31,000 for the charity. This story is just one way this money was put to use.

The snap decision to click the donate button at the online checkout might be something forgotten about a couple of hours later. But when hundreds of thousands of people choose to donate a few pennies to charity that way, the consequences can be great.

Customers booking rooms online at Travelodge have been incredibly generous, donating nearly £60,000 by October 2012, £19,000 of which has gone to charity Kids Out.

Children at specialist school Grange School in Bedfordshire have been at the beneficiary end of these donations thanks to a new Phyzzpod sensory learning environment Kids Out installed with the help of your donations.

A specialist school for children aged 5-16 years with mild learning disabilities, Grange School has highly motivated and skilled teachers who had already used what little equipment they had to create a basic sensory room.

Seeing the benefits this basic equipment was having, it was clear that a full sensory learning facility would be a huge benefit to schoolchildren who were avoiding moving and climbing, who didn’t like being touched, or who were easily over excited.

Without funding, the school couldn’t improve their facilities but after they got in touch with Kids Out, the charity was able to help with fundraising and install a compact but fully kitted out Phyzzpod.

It costs between £12,000 and £15,000 to provide a Phyzzpod to a school, easily covered by the Pennies donations from Travelodge customers. And remember every time you donated spare change at Travelodge, you helped to ensure that this equipment had a positive impact on children with disabilities such as Down syndrome, ADHD and Autism in specialist schools and the surrounding areas.