Mary’s Lamp Group Fundraising at Balfour School’s 2023 Summer Fair

The inspirational Mary’s Lamp group at Balfour School has once again excelled in their fundraising efforts,  raising £175 for the Appeal at the school’s Summer Fair.  Led by River Isaac, our first Child Ambassador, they sold cakes, badges and pamphlets,  ran a netball competition and handed out leaflets – and in a few short hours raised this wonderful amount.  The group were ably assisted by…

Women’s History Month Events including Dome Talk 23 March

Talk at the Dome 23 March 2022. We are delighted that Jean Calder, Chair of Trustees, has been asked to speak in the Founders’ Room at the Dome at 1.00pm on Thursday 23rd March. The theme will be “Mary Clarke, the Dome and the Suffrage Struggle”. This event follows last November’s very successful talk at the Jubilee Library. The focus of that event was on remembrance,…

Youth Ambassadors (14) Make A Birthday Gift to Mary

Once again our Youth Ambassadors have made us very proud. Twins Izzie and Sophia Kilburn, our ‘oldest’ of our young Ambassadors, at just 14 years old, have reprised their feat of last year when, instead of receiving birthday presents,  they arranged for friends and family to donate to the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. This year they have done the same, raising a wonderful £130 for our…

Young Ambassadors Lead the Way with Cake Sale at Balfour School

Our inspirational young Ambassadors have once again triumphed in their fundraising efforts and have made a marvellous donation to the Appeal. River Isaac and her Mary’s Lamp girls’ group at Balfour School have organised a cake sale at the school, ably supported by teachers and parents.  Many hours of baking resulted in record sales, with huge numbers of enthusiastic school students involved. The group has…

Marion Bance writes about Mary Clarke for the Appeal

Local historian Marion Bance recently kindly offered to write an article about Mary Clarke for the Preston Pages and other associated free neighbourhood magazines. It was published last month. The link is below. http://www.prestonpages.com/brightonhistory/recognising-heroine We are so grateful to Marion and to the magazine editor who generously agreed to run the story, despite the fact she’d published something about Mary in September 2020.  Please read…

Balfour School Leads the Way with Girls’ Group

We met River Isaac, our Child Ambassador, during the period of COVID lockdown when she asked us to help her teacher to organise an on-line sculpture class about Mary Clarke for Balfour School in Brighton. This we did and subsequently asked River to become our first Child Ambassador for the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. Since then she has helped us with fundraising events and lobbied councillors…

RaiseMary1000 – Writer Peter James Supports Urgent Appeal  

On 7th April, we launched a post-pandemic appeal we are naming  RaiseMary1000, which was inspired by writer Peter James, our newest Patron. We have received many hundreds of smaller donations, but only a few larger ones. Just recently we were grateful to receive two separate donations of £1,000, one of which was from Peter. It occurred to us that if we could identify just thirty five people to…

ITV News Coverage of Junior Ambassadors campaign for Mary and Blue Plaques

Thank you to ITV Meridian News and Charlotte Wilkins for their coverage this weekend of the wonderful fundraising efforts of Izzy and Sophia Kilburn, our most recently appointed Junior Ambassadors. If you haven’t already seen it, please take a moment to watch the film. You can find the link below. As we reported earlier, the twins have been fundraising to erect blue plaques in Brighton, to…

Twins Isabel Kilburn and Sophia Kilburn become Child Ambassadors

We are pleased to announce that 12 year old twin sisters Isabel (Izzy) and Sophia Kilburn have become our most recent Child Ambassadors. They live in Ovingdean and attend Brighton College Prep School. The girls love music and are accomplished young sportswomen. Izzy focusses on hockey, while Sophia prefers netball and, in particular, cricket. Sophia plays cricket for the Brighton College boys first team. The…

Writer Peter James becomes a Patron

Our Appeal has attracted widespread community backing and has the cross party support of the City Council. It has a number of prominent Patrons, whose support we are immensely proud and honoured to call our own. However, we think our most recent Patron is probably the most famous. We are delighted that the best selling author Peter James has agreed to serve as a Patron…

Mary Clarke Statue Appeal