A KIND-HEARTED school girl from Drongan has spent the Summer holidays painting bricks in colourful and vibrant designs, helping to raise £300 for a charity close to her heart.

Kayla Wightman, age 10, started by painting a monoblock for the owner of Hannahston Alpacas as a thank you for letting her visit the site earlier this summer. When her aunt, Carly, clocked her creation, she asked her if she could paint a welcome brick for her front door.

News of Kayla’s artistic flair soon reached others, and after earning £300 for her efforts, she decided to donate the money to Combat Stress – a charity for veterans’ mental health – in memory of her great-grandfather who was a prisoner of war.

Kayla’s parents, Alma and Fraser, said: “Carly put the brick on Facebook, that’s when one of Carly’s friends suggested she should sell them for charity.

“Kayla’s uncle had some monoblock lying in the garden so we did them for family and friends.

“By this time we started asking people what colour they were wanting and bought a selection of stickers. And by word of mouth she ran out of monoblocks and a family friend gave us more.

Cumnock Chronicle:

“All in we only bought 25 from B&Q. She sold 80 by orders and just did the rest random and sold them on my Facebook account.

“We never thought it would take off and was amazed with the orders coming in.

“We stopped it at 100 as she’s back at school and they are time consuming as she did each brick twice with white paint as an undercoat, twice with the colour then three coats of varnish.

“She sold the bricks for £2.50 each but some people gave a little extra and people who didn’t want bricks even gave her a donation. Some others gave her money towards paint.

“As a family we have supported Combat Stress for a number of years as Kayla’s great-grandfather was a prisoner of war and the family wish he had a service like what Combat Stress provides as he didn’t want to discuss his time with the family and friends.

“We are delighted with the response to her bricks and proud of Kayla wanting to do them to raise money for charity.”

Kayla added: “It was fun doing the bricks and thanks everyone for their kindness between donations, buying them and all the nice comments.”

Robert Marsh, Director of Fundraising at Combat Stress, said: “We are all very impressed by Kayla’s fantastic fundraising efforts. She’s very creative and we want to say a big thank you to Kayla for raising £300 for Combat Stress.

"As with all our fundraisers, Kayla’s support is so important. The money she’s raised will help us to continue providing our specialist mental health services to veterans across Scotland and the rest of the UK.”