Coseley barber prepares for bike ride to help children with special needs

Over the years, local barber, Reece Watson, 31, who works at Raw Barbershop in Coseley said that he noticed that a lot of his customers included young people with special needs.

Feeling moved by this reality, the barber said that always wanted to raise money for a local charity that would help local children with special needs.

The opportunity to do so came up when he was chatting to a local customer, who had suggested that he raises money for her son’s school in the local area.

“For about six months, I’ve been wanting to do a fundraiser for a special-needs charity, it just made sense really. I tried contacting a few, but couldn’t get through to them, so I was telling one of my other customers whose got a son that goes to a special school in Brierley Hill, and she suggested: “Why don’t you do it for Joe’s school?”.

Since then, he has contacted the school, Old Park (special school) and shared that he has a the target to raise about £4000 that will go towards a new school bus for the students at the school.

Old Park supports children and teenagers from 4-19, particularly “young people with severe and profound learning difficulties”.

Reece shared that current bus that the school has is “old and always breaking down”, the purpose of this fundraiser is to help the children currently attending the school to get a new minibus so that they can go on lots more school trips.

As part of this fundraiser, Reece will travel from Marshall meadows bay (the most northern point in England to Old Park in Brierley Hill.

The bike ride will take place next month, (May 10), and Reece shared that it should take him about seven days to complete.

Reece told the Express & Star that he has the goal of raising about £4000 for the special needs school.

So far, on the Just Giving page, £635 has been raised.

He has asked locals for support, and has said to “please help by donating whatever you can”.