A GROUP of puppeteers from a Hampshire church stayed up all night performing to raise money towards continuing their outreach work.

Praizin’ Hands Puppet Group at Hythe United Reformed Church held a ‘puppet-athon’ from 10pm to 10am to raise money towards a new van.

Formed in 2003, the group travel around local schools and hospices providing free puppet shows.

Over 12 hours, they performed 225 songs non-stop.

Bev Eyres, one of those who took part, said: “ We go into schools all over Hampshire, all year round, and do puppet presentations on social issues to support the PSHE curriculum.

“We do presentations on everything from internet safety and cyber-bullying to drugs and alcohol.

“We also go in to perform the stories of Christmas and Easter.”

“We were raising money for a replacement van - it died just before Christmas so we’ve been desperately trying to raise money.

“We think we have managed around £10,000.”

In January 2007 the Schools’ Project was set up to support the work of “On The Right Track”, part of Families Matter community project at Hythe URC.

Over the past six weeks the group have raised a total of £11,140 for their new van.

Bev added: “Our last van was donated to Praizin’ Hands in memory of one of our stage crew, Les Spurgeon.

“ Unfortunately, this van gave up just before we started our Christmas performances so we had to hire a van for 26 days.

“However, after this very successful fundraising activity including very generous donations from many individuals we are now able to purchase another van which means we will be back on the road very soon.”