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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Orlaith Clinton

Belfast Model's young men take to the streets of their community in fundraising clean-up

Hundreds of young men took to the streets of North Belfast in a bid to clean the area in a fundraising effort to buy a community defibrillator.

The pupils from the Boys Model High School, on the Ballysillan Road, swapped note pads for little pickers and collected bin bags of rubbish from the streets.

Belfast Live attended one of their cleanups on Thursday, where scores of class mates engaged in some healthy competition in the Ballysillan area - the school is divided up into a house system, and whichever house collects the most rubbish, wins a prize.

READ MORE: North Belfast man starts walking group to help improve fitness and mental health

Principal Mary Montgomery said: "The boys are going out in teams as per their house in school. This sponsored cleanup was thought of, and organised by the boys, and they wanted money raised to go towards buying a defibrillator for the shops across the road.

"The community has been hugely supported and are really behind the school and the boys. This is the ethos of the school and we are at the heart of the community that we serve.

"We want to give back to the community and it is important to us that the community feels we are a good neighbour."

Belfast Boys' Model School cleanup (Justin Kernoghan/Belfast Live)

Year 14 pupils Marcus Lawson and Luke Robinson thanked the school team and local community for their dedication and support to this social action project.

They told Belfast Live: "Our idea was a community cleanup because we thought there was no point in asking people to donate and help us, if we weren't giving back.

"As a group we done some research, contacted relevant charities and just started to get things done.

"The sessions have been going really well and we have collected as much rubbish as we can so far. We want to give genuine thanks for all the donations, help and support.

British Heart Foundation stats relating to North Belfast (British Heart Foundation)

"We honestly could not do any of this without the charities, the council and the community of North Belfast. All of this happened because they supported us."

Please follow this link to donate to the fundraiser.

Video feature by Belfast Live videographer Dylan Hegarty.

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