Walsall mayor takes part in 'welly wanging'
Walsall's mayor and mayoress showed their competitive sides when they joined in with a 'welly wanging' challenge at a school.
Councillor Marco Longhi and Andrea Longhi visited Abu Bakr Girls' School in the borough to talk about their chosen charity for the year, WPH Counselling, and took part in a challenge while they were there.
In the week leading up to the event the pupils raised more than £2,000 for the charity which offers a range of professional, free and confidential counselling.
The pupils took part in a cake sale among other fundraising activities and on Friday pupils chose either the mayor or mayoress to be paired up with as they attempted to wang the wellies as far as they could.
Councillor Longhi said: "It was a bit of fun, one child was paired up with me and one with the mayoress and for some reason most children wanted to go with the mayoress.
"It was all part of a challenge, I have invited all Walsall schools to participate and the mayor and mayoress go into schools and talk about our charity which is all about mental health.
"We raise awareness and make pupils aware that there are organisations willing to support young people, as there is a very sharp increase in young people needed mental health support and at the moment we are ill equipped to meet that need.
"Some schools decide to fundraise, this school raised well over £2,000 which I was blown away by and the school can be very proud of.
"We ask all schools to think of a challenge and we come and participate, whether it's a maths quiz or whatever.
"It's great just to engage the children and so it in a light-hearted way. It also gets parents talking about it."
