A STUDENT given the gift of life has helped to raise more than £300 for Kidney Research UK.

Adam Bhaiji, aged 17, hosted a fundraising day at Canon Slade School, in Bradshaw, where he is a pupil, to mark World Kidney Day, a global awareness event.

The year 13 pupil was fundraising for the charity after receiving a life-saving kidney transplant in March last year.

The kidney from an anonymous donor, came three years after Adam was placed on the transplant waiting list due to suffering from renal failure.

World Kidney Day was marked at the school with a cake sale, a football match involving pupils playing against staff, and the whole of the sixth form wore at least one purple item — to symbolise the charity’s colour.

Footballers from Year 13 also dyed their hair purple to get in the spirit of the event.

Adam said: “It was an amazing day.

“I really hoped everybody would get behind it and I knew people would be supportive but they went above and beyond expectations.

“Members of the school’s charity society went out of their way to organise things.

“A few people asked me why we were raising money for Kidney Research UK and I told them the whole background story about me having a transplant.”

The school raised £320 during the event on Thursday, March 13.

Adam, of Allendale Gardens, Halliwell, received the call he had been waiting years for while he was revising for his exams last year. He had previously had dialysis for four hours, three times a week.

The teenager is backing The Bolton News’ appeal for people to sign up to become organ donors.

The drive comes ahead of the British Transplant Games, which will be held in Bolton this summer.

People can sign up to become an organ donor by visiting organdonation.nhs.uk