A BIG-HEARTED schoolgirl is seeing the fruits of her labour after raising hundreds of pounds for charity.

Alana, who is a Year 7 student at Hedingham School, made the most of her lockdown spare time with the fundraiser.

Working with best friend Chloe, who lives in Yorkshire, Alana decided to raise money to support Hearing Dogs for the Deaf.

The charity holds a special place in Alana’s heart because her friend’s grandmother is deaf.

The pair came up with the idea of being sponsored for not sitting down for the whole of February.

The challenging task only allowed Alana to sit down when they were travelling in a car for obvious safety reasons... or when they went to the toilet.

Alana said: “It was very challenging because sitting down is such an everyday thing.”

She ate her meals with her family by kneeling on a foot stool to reach the table, played the piano kneeling and did all her school work lying down.

Alana thought it would be easier due to it being lockdown as it would have been quite difficult to stand up in all her classes at school.

She was only eleven years old when she did the challenge but managed to complete the 28 days without sitting down and raised more £600 with Chloe for Hearing Dogs for the Deaf.

Now Alana is seeing her work pay off, with the cash being used to train a puppy to be a hearing dog.

Alana is also receiving monthly ‘Pup Dates’ which let her know how Bessie the cocker spaniel is getting on with its training.

Alana added: “It is pretty cool and exciting to get photos of your dog.”

It can take up to two years to train a dog to work with a deaf person and then Bessie will be matched with her new owner.

Hedingham School also said it is very proud of Alana’s efforts to help others less fortunate than herself.