by Linda Macqueen
LOTSA COINS
Vicki Gollasch of Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) regularly visits schools to talk to the students about the plight of refugees.
At Australia’s smallest Lutheran school (St Peter’s, Dimboola, in western Victoria) her visit was going pretty much according to the script. In order to personally experience something of the life of refugee children, the students half-filled buckets of water and walked around the block, sharing the carrying of the buckets.
‘This was all very normal’, Vicki says. ‘We always ask the children to do something practical like this when we visit schools.
‘However …’
At the end of the day the children presented Vicki with a cheque. They had been collecting and saving their chapel offering money for two years. They had raised $1300.
‘That was an amazing effort for a school with 28 students’, Vicki says. ‘And they were thrilled to know that they could support 50 refugee kids at $26* each.’
St Peter’s principal, Tim Reimann, says the students have always been very generous with their donations at chapel every Friday.
‘In all my time within schools I have never witnessed such a spirit of giving from such a small school community.
