CHILDREN have raised more than £1,000 for charity by selling sweets.

Friends Olivia Planner, 11, from Titchfield, Amber McLaren, 10, from Locks Heath and Aisling Foley, 10, of Titchfield spent their free time putting sweets in bags and selling hundreds of them to people at their local church and school.

Olivia started the scheme around Easter when she heard her local church, St Margaret Mary Church in Park Gate, was planning to purchase a sweet machine to collect for charity, but she wanted to ensure as much as possible went to the charity so suggested she did it herself.

She then roped in her two friends’ help.

The girls, all pupils at St Anthony’s Primary School, in Titchfield Common, raised £1,100 for the Rainbow Centre, a Fareham charity that which supports children with cerebral palsy and adults with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease or those that have had a stroke or a head injury.

Last year it launched a successful campaign to raise £150,000 in just a few weeks to keep its doors open.

Olivia said: “It was really fun making the sweets and selling them but it was really hard not to eat them.”