TEENAGERS have given a local homeless charity a major cash boost.

A team of S3 pupils from Port Glasgow High School won an in-house competition as part of the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) and the £3,000 they scooped will now help individuals with no roof over their head.

Jenna Lindsay, Gemma Leith, Gary Devlin and Shaun Glacken are delighted that Inverclyde Homeless Forum, based at St Mary’s Church hall, will benefit.

Jenna said: “We went out and visited the charity and heard people’s stories, which were worse than we expected.

“When we did our presentation we used three case studies we had been told about.”

Gemma added: “We learned a lot and it has made us think about others who are less fortunate.”

Head teacher Stuart Clark congratulated the pupils and said he is ‘so proud of all of them’.

He said: “It’s a tremendous initiative which gives the pupils the chance to make a link with charities in our community.

“Every single team did a fantastic job at championing their charity.”

Mohammed Hamid, the principal teacher of science at the school, helped organise the competition and said the pupils quickly became passionate about their charities.

He said: “Lots of the pupils went out to visit their charities multiple times.”

Carol Bjonness, from Inverclyde Homeless Forum, says the £3,000 cash injection will make a huge difference.

She said: “I’m absolutely thrilled by it.

“The pupils have put in so much hard work.

“They came down to the centre and helped out.”

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges, including Provost Martin Brennan, head teacher Mr Clark, the school’s former head Alan Dick, depute head Fiona Craig and the head boy and girl, Daniel Blaikie and Julia Ballingall.