Youth Off The Streets students go bush to help struggling farmers
DROUGHT-stricken farmers worked to the bone to keep their livestock alive will score 63 spare pairs of hands from kids who know all about adversity and hard graft.
NSW
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DROUGHT-stricken farmers worked to the bone to keep their livestock alive will score 63 spare pairs of hands from kids who know all about adversity and hard graft.
Father Chris Riley will take 63 kids from the Youth Off The Streets program to Mudgee, Coonamble, Brewarrina and Bourke, where they’ll be put to work fixing fences and handfeeding cattle.
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Schoolgirl Bergren Schirrmacher Wells, 16, who spent last year homeless and hiding from drunks who stumbled across her sleeping on the beach, has a message of hope for farmers.
“I’m expecting to see a lot of pain in the bush,” Bergren told The Sunday Telegraph.
“If someone in the bush comes up to me and says ‘I don’t know what to do, I’m scared’, I could tell them how I was scared to sleep on the beach but it will get better because someone’s always going to help.”
The Year 10 student at Youth Off The Street’s Bowen College in Maroubra relishes the prospect of hard yakka under the baking sun to help out farmers in strife.
On the drought relief convoy, which leaves on Monday, the young people will also run games for rural kids and hand out donated grocery vouchers.
“It will instil in their lives the value and satisfaction of service, and despite doing it tough they have plenty to give,” Father Riley said.
“People might say these kids have their own troubles, which is true, nobody’s saying they’re perfect, but the best thing to teach them is that they can make a positive difference.”