Students at a Bradford secondary school have voted the Telegraph & Argus Bradford Crocus Cancer Appeal as their charity of the year as they kicked off their fundraising during an end-of-term food festival.

Members of Yusuf House, one of four houses at the all-girls Feversham College, decided to back our £1 million fundraising quest during the next school year after selecting it from a shortlist of good causes nominated by pupils.

Their first event in support of our campaign to fight cancer here in the city saw students bring in food from home to sell during break times, raising a fantastic £142.55.

Sara Saeed, 17, of school’s Student Leadership, who organised the initiative with Tayyaba Anwar, also 17, said: “This was just the launch and hopefully we can raise a lot more money next year.

“Students in each house were asked to suggest charities to support, and that was taken to a shortlist of three.

“They then looked in detail of each charity – its aims, objectives and what it does – and then voted on which to choose.

“The T&A Bradford Crocus Cancer Appeal is a local charity and we hope we can raise more awareness of it. There are not many charities like it, it will support the Bradford community and it is Bradford-based.

“By selling food, each house raised a different amount for their chosen charity.

“We do a lot during the school year to support charities during fundraising events. For example, we run a Give a Little Every Day campaign which sees students donate their loose change.

“We are an Islamic school and it is part of Islam to give to charities.”

The £1 million we hope to raise through our campaign will buy Bradford University’s Institute of Cancer Therapeutics a new, state-of-the-art mass spectrometer, which could help its scientists pioneer less toxic ways of treating the disease more than ten times faster than ever before.

The department’s last major breakthrough, a tumour-blasting ‘smart bomb’ treatment, due to begin clinical trials late this year or early next year, has the potential of destroying a tumour with virtually no side effects to the rest of the body.