The Helen Foundation celebrated a very special milestone on Monday – Helen Kirk’s 40th birthday.

The charity was founded in 2006 following her death after a road accident on Boxing Day 2005.

The talented 24-year-old actor from Shaldon went to local schools where she thrived.

Helen loved the arts of all kinds and passionately believed in the power of drama, art, music and dance to enrich the lives of young people, developing creativity, building self-confidence and firing the imagination.

The Helen Foundation’s mission is to enable young people through the arts to ‘dare to dream’ – words from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, a part Helen played so enthusiastically as a teenager on stage in Teignmouth.

The charity is delighted that all children are starting to return to school this week. It’s a very challenging time for both young people and staff – and for some parents!

The Helen Foundation wants to help schools as much as it can during this next 15 months by providing extra funding for their arts programmes.

The arts play such an important part in so many children’s lives and deserve equal status with subjects like maths, science and English in a curriculum designed to benefit every young person.

The arts promote mental health in so many ways, and more children than ever before are in major need of a boost to their wellbeing.

In celebration of Helen’s 40th birthday year, and the return of all young people to schools, the charity has launched a major fundraising drive called THF40for40. This will establish a special THF Arts Recovery Fund for the coming academic year 2021-2022, which publicly funded Teignbridge primary, secondary schools and special schools will be able to access to boost their arts work, which has been so very badly affected by the pandemic.

The aim is ambitious – to raise £40,000 by New Year’s Eve 2021! This support will be in addition to the sizeable financial offer the charity makes annually to Teignbridge schools for arts workshops led by professional artists.

With the extra support, schools could: bring in professional artists for arts-week workshops, buy in much-needed arts resources, devise a creative whole-school arts projec or mount a major school production

Schools themselves individually would decide what would have the greatest arts impact on their students. Information about accessing the THF Arts Recovery Fund will be sent directly to schools in time for the start of the summer term.

Chairman of The Helen Foundation Roger Kirk says: ‘We know there are huge demands all round for resources right across the charity sector. But The Helen Foundation Trustees believe that the arts are so important for so many young people’s well-being that they have no hesitation in launching this appeal.

‘Several Trustees have already started their own THF40for40 fund-raising challenges linked to the main campaign. We’re on the way!”

Full details about the campaign are on The Helen Foundation website, where there is also a link to the donations page on VirginMoneyGiving.