AN OXFORD institution which has raised half a million pounds for charity over the past half a century has revealed it is ‘going out with a bang’ this year on its 50th birthday.

Kennington Overseas Aid, which runs the popular Bagley Wood Fun Run, claims to have founded Oxfordshire’s first pop-up shop and counts Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood among its supporters, said it had been forced to wind up due to its ageing committee and the death of a long-serving member.

After helping good causes around the world since 1968, the group is planning a bumper year of fundraising events, including what may be the last ever Bagley Wood Fun Run.

Committee member Sylvia Vetta, who has been involved since 1976, served as chairman numerous times and saved the group from closing several years ago, said: “I think it’s not generally understood that KOA is so unique.

“I don’t believe there is another village in the world which has done what we have done.

“KOA has been about doing things for the village so everyone can come together, but also making links all over the world.”

As well as the fun run, the group also organises the annual grand fete in Kennington and has put on regular theatrical events, fundraising talks and charity dinners attracting the great and the good of Oxford.

Each year for decades it has picked a different, and almost always a little-known, good cause to support somewhere in the developing world: in 2014 it raised £27,000 for Abingdon’s own Nasio Trust, which supports two Kenyan orphan centres.

It has also supported a project supporting albino people in Tanzania, poor communities in Peru and village development in India.

It all started in 1968 at an event which encapsulates everything the group went on to champion for the next half a century.

That year, members of the three village churches came together in a study group to debate the question “Who is my neighbour?”

The aim was to discuss the idea that as well as the people living nearby, neighbours could be anyone around the world in need of help.

Out of those talks were formed Kennington’s good neighbour scheme, its united churches choir and Kennington Overseas Aid.

Ms Vetta said: “KOA was an acknowledgement that the world was becoming a more interlinked place: we were stretching our hands out to neighbours around the world who had nothing.”

The first fundraising effort was Kennington Overseas Aid Week – seven days of charity events including a sponsored walk, a Scouts’ bingo and a children’s sports evening.

The first chosen good cause was a project aiming to improve irrigation and provide seed and fertilisers for the village of Otterthotti in Mysore, India.

The group had aimed to raise a modest £60 and ended up getting £350 – nearly six times their target.

From that beginning, the annual fundraising flourished.

In the early 1970s the group decided that just one week of fundraising a year was too restrictive, so they agreed to hold events throughout the year.

Around the same time it founded its pop-up shop at St Swithun’s Church hall, which has popped up every summer since.

One of the main fundraisers was the concerts by Kennington & District United Church Choirs, which led to director Trevor Cowlett being made KOA honorary life president.

Everything the group has done has relied on hundreds of volunteers giving their time for free.

Ms Vetta said: “We got hundreds of people volunteering to work in the shop or marshal events.

“With a lot of our events – the fete and the fun run – people just turn up.

“The problem we have found is the committee.”

The group first faced closure around 2000, when none of the committee wanted to take the mantle of being chairman.

Ms Vetta said: “I managed to save it by persuading two people to remain if I was chairman, and I’ve been alternating with them every three years ever since.”

The group struggled on for another decade but in 2016 suffered a devastating blow when long-serving secretary and lifelong Kennington resident Rebecca Allison died suddenly of meningitis at the age of 47.

A passionate and talented singer, for 12 years she had been one of the main organisers of the annual KOA Gala Night.

Ms Vetta said simply: “We haven’t been able to replace her.

“There just isn’t the generation waiting to take on the responsibility, unfortunately.

“That’s how things are, so we thought we’d try to make it through this year, our 50th, and we’d really celebrate what we have done and go out with a bang.”

This year’s programme – including what are expected to be the last Bagley Wood Fun Run and grand fete – kicks off with a special fundraising dinner and talk next Saturday.

Ms Vetta said: “If KOA had petered out I would be very upset, but we’re going out with a bang.

“Of course we will be sad in September: there will be a few tears, but hopefully we’ll also be able to feel very, very proud.”