Slime was the big seller at Laurimar Primary School’s market day earlier this year with a fair amount of that gunk turning into funds for The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH).

This is the second year the Year Six students of the Doreen school have been given a project about entrepreneurship. Their task is to research a charity, then create a small business and sell products on market day with all funds donated to their chosen charity.

Best friends Cooper Antonello (left in the photo) and Blake Hoppner (middle) sold playdough – “Soft as a cloud” – and stress balls also made with flour. There was no question that they’d choose the RCH as their charity and their third business partner Dylan was in agreement.

“We are doing this really cool thing and we chose you to be our charity and you saved my life,” wrote Cooper to the hospital. Blake backed him up: “We chose The Royal Children’s Hospital because you saved my best friend’s life.”

Student Aimee Innella made a similar decision, raising $176.50 for the RCH Good Friday Appeal. With a brother in and out of the RCH with a brain tumour, she was motivated to handcraft soaps and lip balms. The poster at her stall told visitors, “All my products are out of this world”.

Teacher Bonnie Comac was delighted with the great success of the market day and praised the hard work and caring nature of all the children.

“The kids really loved demonstrating their enterprising abilities and were absolutely thrilled with their efforts,” she said. “The entire school community gets involved in the day and every business posted a profit.”

The 2018 Year Six students raised a total of $5720 for their various charities. That was an increase of $1620 over the 2017 total: an excellent result for them and their charities including the sick children of the RCH.