Children who attend G8 Education Ltd early education centres have collectively raised $15,764.70 to help support local farmers in regional New South Wales that have been severely impacted by the ongoing drought.
The co-ordinated initiative called “Buy a Bale” saw children and families at 30 different G8 centres across Australia participate.
Sausage sizzles and farmer-themed dress up days were the main fundraising activities.
G8 matched the funds raised by the centre-based teams dollar-for-dollar bringing the total to $31,529.40 which is equivalent to 190 bales of hay that were purchased and delivered to farms across the country on Friday 25 January.
Commenting on the initiative Gary Carroll, Managing Director of G8, said “It’s a wonderful effort on behalf of all the centre teams, families and children.” “This collaboration of enthusiasm not only epitomises the Australian spirit of generosity and community but also demonstrates how important these early learning centre experiences are in educating our children about matters beyond the early years curriculum.” Rachael Morris, Centre Manager at Nurture One Albert Street, whose centre raised $4,325.70 for the initiative noted “We wanted to make a difference to our local farmers in our region as the drought had severely impacted numerous farms in the direct community.” “This is a great community and the fact that so many families came together for our Breakfast and Raffle drive meant we had widespread support from across the region.
Families were passionate about the cause and making a difference for farmers and their families.” To celebrate the delivery of the bales the children at Nurture One Albert Street visited a local sheep station outside Parkes to meet the farmers and the animals.
Wayne Thomson, General Manager of Rural Aid Australia, also expressed his appreciation for the many teams efforts noting that the funds would have a significant impact on farmers lives.

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Lawmakers also approved a series of measures to help Pinal County farmers deal with the water shortages they will face as part of the agreement.
Under the proposal, farmers will fallow thousands of acres of land and give up their rights to Central Arizona Water.
Bahr believes allowing Pinal County farmers to use ground water will only create more problems.
Without a consensus plan, the federal agency has said it will make the rules.
The deadline requires only that the states sign off on the drought plan for the river that serves 40 million people in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.
That’s because Arizona has the lowest priority rights to the river.
If Arizona’s proposal collapses and the federal government steps in, those states could put some of their plans in motion to meet their obligation to other states, water managers said.
Arizona must find a way to reduce its use of Colorado River water by up to 700,000 acre-feet — more than twice Nevada’s yearly allocation under the drought plan.

Minister for Training and Skills Development Shannon Fentiman said the program provides much needed training support to farmers and communities severely affected by drought.
"We want to ensure we can support our farmers by providing training opportunities to improve their farming operations and increase opportunities for off-farm income.
"This program will be very valuable to farmers and drought affected communities, giving them an opportunity to gain new skills to be able to embrace new business opportunities.” The first Rural Support Training Program was delivered in Gatton from December 10 to 14 last year with a great response from participants.
Participant feedback on the chemicals, chainsaw and machinery washdown training completed was excellent.
The five different programs on offer, provide training in a range of areas including work health and safety, chemicals, chainsaws and hospitality.
Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner said the program offered flexible and practical training.
"During tough drought conditions, this program is an important contributor to these communities.” TAFE Queensland chief executive Mary Campbell said the training would help farmers engage with their local communities and increase off-farm revenue opportunities.
"Farmers are kept busy with a continuous body of work to maintain their farms and they need flexible training, which is why we’ve worked with the Queensland Government to develop the Rural Support Training Program.” Programs are short-term and enable famers to accommodate daily travel time and schedule farm tasks before and after the classes.
"We will continue to add programs as locations are negotiated with local communities,” said Ms Campbell.
For more information about the Rural Support Training Programs, contact TAFE Queensland.

Maharashtra Chief MInister Devendra Fadnavis Tuesday said water conservation schemes like Jalyukt Shivar has helped increase agriculture production despite drought conditions in the state.
Speaking at the 4th World Congress on Disaster Management here, Fadnavis stressed on action and preventive remedy before the occurrence of disasters, and advocated the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and integrated efforts for disaster management.
Fadnavis said, "This scheme (Jalyukt Shivar) is also giving sustainable irrigation to farmers."
Jalyukt Shivar, a micro-irrigation project, involves deepening and widening of streams, construction of cement and earthen stop dams, and digging of farm ponds across the state.
"Disaster management is an extremely important aspect for achieving sustainable goals and many NGOs are working with the administration in this sector.
We are also working to reduce emission level by 2030 through various measures," he said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Maharashtra’s opposition called the centre’s financials aid package a job "half done".
(Representational) Mumbai: The centre Tuesday sanctioned financial assistance of R 4,714.28 crore for Maharashtra’s drought affected farmers.
The opposition parties, however, claimed it fell short of the state’s actual requirement and was a job "half done".
Welcoming the decision of the Union Agriculture Ministry, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted, "Thank you Hon @narendramodi ji, Hon @RadhamohanBJP ji for the drought assistance of 4714.28 crore to Maharashtra."
"This shows the firm commitment of Union Government towards the citizens of Maharashtra," Mr Fadnavis’ tweet added.
However, state Congress chief Ashok Chavan said, "The state had demanded R 7,962 crore as financial assistance.
But it received only R 4,714 crore.
This is half job done."
He hit out at the BJP-led state government and claimed kharif and rabi crops had been badly affected.
Mr Chavan said the quantum of assistance from the Union government should have been higher and accused it of failing to address Maharashtra’s needs.

With a critical federal deadline just two days away, Arizona lawmakers have introduced legislation for a Drought Contingency Plan aimed at preventing the Colorado River from falling to catastrophically low levels.
Legislators in the House and Senate introduced joint resolutions Monday that would authorize Arizona to sign the interstate Drought Contingency Plan.
The Senate joint resolution must go through the Water and Agriculture Committee, while the House version has been assigned to the Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee.
In December, Brenda Burman, the commissioner of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, gave the seven Colorado River basin states — Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming — until January 31 to agree on a joint Drought Contingency Plan.
If they do not, the federal government will step in and come up with its own plan to protect the Colorado River.
Arizona is the only state that has not signed off on the plan.
These changes would allow Arizona to implement a separate internal plan to distribute cutbacks among Arizona water users that are laid out in the interstate Drought Contingency Plan.
Technically, these bills do not have the same January 31 deadline as the legislation authorizing Arizona to sign off on a Drought Contingency Plan.
Drought negotiators have said they do not want to see legislation for Arizona’s internal plan to be left behind, even if the state signs off on the multistate plan.
If the federal government is allowed to dictate cutbacks to states’ supply of Colorado River water, Arizona will lose far more water than the 18 percent it currently stands to lose under a Drought Contingency Plan.

Arizona’s plan has broad support but it hasn’t been approved by the Legislature, a factor that has made the negotiations on the drought contingency plan more complex.
No other state required lawmakers to sign off.
“The delay increases the risk for us all.” The deadline requires only that the states sign off on the drought plan.
Arizona lawmakers want to see exactly how the plan will affect their constituents before they cast a vote, and tweaks to a handful of bills expected to be introduced will create more uncertainty.
His budget includes $30 million to protect the levels in Lake Mead and $5 million for groundwater infrastructure.
If Arizona’s plan collapses and the federal government steps in, those states could put in motion at least some of their own plan to meet their obligation to the lower basin states, water managers there said.
The Interior Department, the parent agency of the Bureau of Reclamation, is the water master of the river that serves 40 million people.
“The less time you give us, the more complicated this is going to get.” Arizona must find a way to reduce its use of Colorado River water by up to 700,000 acre-feet — more than twice Nevada’s yearly allocation under the drought plan.
The Metropolitan Water District, another major water user of Colorado River water in California, is pumping more water through its aqueducts to ensure the 500,000 acre-feet of water it has stored behind Lake Mead won’t be stranded if the reservoir levels fall drastically and Arizona isn’t on board with the drought plan, said the district’s general manager, Jeff Kightlinger.
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Crops struggling as Tasman region sees early drought Parched produce lines the Waimea Plains in the driest region in New Zealand.
Source: 1 NEWS Crops in the Tasman region are struggling with the region now in early drought and the driest region in New Zealand.
"The small, leafy [vegetables] – your lettuces, your spinaches and silverbeet – they’re struggling.
They’re struggling," Mark Connor of Appleby Fresh said.
But the wait for water is only lengthening in the Tasman, and river water levels are getting low.
All the rivers are what we call below mean annual low flow, so that’s getting low," Tasman District Council’s Dennis Bush-King said.
The Rai River fell below its minimum flow level on Sunday, ceasing all 18 consented water takes.
Two weeks ago, the Nelson-Richmond area saw around four millimetres of rainfall, but it was dry leading up to that, and NIWA says the next seven to 10 days is expected to be dry overall.
Up in the hills, hikers have been advised to carry plenty of water, with tanks running dry along popular local trails at a number of huts and campsites.
Tasman Council-owned forests and popular Nelson tracks are now off-limits.

Austrian researchers have made it simpler to identify climate refugees, claiming to have established a direct causal link between climate change, conflict and the numbers of migrants.
They are not the first to confirm that there is a statistical association between the likelihood of drought, or heat extremes, and violence.
Evidence of cause for any civil or international conflict is always complex and often disputed.
“But in a context of poor governance and a medium level of democracy, severe climate conditions can create conflict over scarce resources.” Specific conditions He and colleagues report in the journal Global Environmental Change that they looked at data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of asylum applications from 157 countries between 2006 and 2015.
And they found that – in specific circumstances – climatic conditions do lead to increased migration as a consequence of conflict exacerbated by the more severe droughts.
Hard to establish All conclusions about human behaviour at the political level are difficult to establish.
The connection between climate conditions and human response is less certain in a disputed world.
Researchers have systematically found associations between climate and violence and between climate and the conditions for civil inequality.
Urgent prospect Some have found an association between drought and the conflict in Syria, but others have disputed the conclusion.
This helps to keep our stories and resources free for all, and it also supports independent journalism dedicated to sustainable development.

Coalition govt.
Yeddyurappa has said that the party leaders would visit the drought-affected areas in the State to get first-hand knowledge of the condition of farmers and also about crop loss.
The issue would also be raised in the State Legislature.
The State government has not taken any steps to alleviate the problems of farmers in the drought-affected areas and instead, the Congress and the Janata Dal(S) leaders are busy in looting public money in the name of development, he said.
“When asked about drought relief works, the State government points its fingers towards the Union government and blames Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Commenting on the loan waiver announced by the State government, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that the State government has not given any clear information to farmers and it is wasting time by misguiding them.
Bharat Ratna Answering to a question, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that he would make sincere efforts to convince the Union government of the need to honour the Tumakuru Siddaganga Mutt seer, Sri Shivakumara Swamiji, who passed away recently, with Bharat Ratna for his service in the field of education.
MLAs G.H.
Thippareddy, M. Chandrappa, Poornima Srinivas, Davangere MP G.M.
Siddeshwar and district-level officers were present.