ALMOST 7,000 school pupils have joined a fund-raising initiative to raise money for Looe-based charity Ellie's Haven.

'The Gigantic Atlantic Challenge' has been launched this week by Jo Christensen, a former teacher from Looe Community School.

The initiative is in conjunction with Torpoint-based Atlantic rowers Mark Story and Steve McCann who are aiming to raise £100,000 for the charity as part of their bid to row the Atlantic in December.

A total of 12 schools are taking part from Cornwall and Devon, including Torpoint Community College, Liskeard School and Community College, Callington Community College, Saltash.net community school, Looe Community School and Looe, St Cleer, Trenode, Pelynt and Duloe primary schools.

Each school has been given a £250 grant which a committee of pupils have to use to kickstart fund-raising activities over the year until July 2010.

The Atlantic rowers will be giving assemblies at each of the schools and challenging the students and staff to support them in raising money.

Mark Story said: "The idea is to give the schools something, rather than just ask them to raise money – we hope that the grant will let them be creative and entrepreneurial.

"One of our objectives for our rowing project was to involve the community and this is an ideal way – there are nearly 7,000 students involved in the Gigantic Atlantic Challenge and we are asking that they also adopt this principle of involving others where they can."

The rowers will be receiving e-mails from the students and doing live phone link-ups from the middle of the ocean. Some schools will be integrating aspects of the row into their curriculum.

Jo Christensen added: "This project is about enabling children to help other children. The excitement surrounding Mark and Steve's row has really fired children's imaginations."

The schools' activities will be posted onto dedicated pages of the Atlantic Freedom website www.atlanticfreedom.com