An Aberdeenshire church has donated money to help secondary school pupils engage with online lessons during lockdown.
Members of the congregation at Banchory West Church raised £5,000 in just 12 days and made the money available to buy laptops for pupils without access to technology.
Staff at Banchory Academy were “taken aback” by the cheque, which will cover the cost of at least 18 machines.
Reverend Tony Stephen said members were excited they were able to offer “practical” help after coronavirus led to school closures across the country.
He added: “We always want to help Banchory Academy as the teachers and staff support young people in our community.
“As soon as lockdown started we got in touch to ask what we could do and the head teacher Judith Wight told us that there were kids struggling to access online learning and that a lack of equipment was the biggest barrier.
“We discussed it as a congregation and everyone agreed the most practical thing we could do was donate money to the school to buy Chromebook laptops, which are apparently very effective.”
The church has also been using online technology to bring people together during lockdown by using Zoom to host video conferences, engaging members and enabling face-to-face interaction.
Donations are still coming in and will be passed on to the school in due course.