GOOD NEWS STORY

Students from the Villers-Bretonneux have helped the children from a Victorian school gutted in Black Saturday

COIN by coin,
the students in the small French village of Villers-Bretonneux have raised more than $20,000 to help rebuild a Victorian school razed in the Black Saturday bushfires.

The French students of Ecole Victoria, and three other local schools, knew little about the children they would be helping at Strathewen Primary School. They only knew their great-grandparents had promised 91 years ago never to forget the 1200 Australian soldiers who died liberating their village from the Germans on April 24, 1918.

They also promised to remember every child in Victoria who donated a penny to help the village rebuild their school after Villers-Bretonneux was flattened in World War II.

This year, the Villers-Bretonneux students held a special fete to raise money for the children of Strathewen. Collection tins were emblazoned with the words, "N'Oublions Jamais l'Australie" -- Let us never forget Australia.


When The Australian travelled to Villers-Bretonneux for Anzac Day, the students of one grade 9-10 class had collected $240. With contributions from the community and one euro donated by the council for every resident in the village, the tally has come as a welcome surprise to Strathewen and its students.

Yesterday, when Strathewen Primary was given 13,000 euros ($21,100) from Ecole Victoria and the other schools of Villers-Bretonneux, a promise almost a century old was honoured.