St Joseph’s teacher Brad Toole said when the boxes arrived, students were not only excited by the letters, but touched by the thought. 

Mr Toole said the initiative came about after teachers at St Mary’s Primary School, Moruya, contacted the school to exchange class lists so students could send personalised letters to the students in Nyngan.

St Mary’s held a Fiver for a Farmer day, where students all bought in $5 for drought relief, and activities on the day included writing letters to help make bush kids smile. 

“They sent these nice little boxes with cards in it to us here, it was really good,” Mr Toole said. 

“All the kids were so excited and all the classes were really wrapped to see it.

“It was really nice of them,” Mr Toole said.

“They were so excited and particularly the older kids, they were touched by how kind it was.” 

“The first thing they wanted to do was write back to them, and start a pen pal relationship,” he said. 

Letters discussed questions about rural lifestyles and sought to uncover what kids in rural areas were interested in and what hobbies they have. 

“Letters involved things like ‘we’re thinking of you in this hard time’ and ‘what’s it like living on a farm?’ and ‘what’s it like in a drought?’,” Mr Toole said.

Now Mr Toole said this week they are in the process of writing letters back to the students at St Mary’s so students can begin a pen-pal relationship. 

“It’s really good and came out of not much, it was a little by chance are you interested, and from there it’s snowballed,” Mr Toole said. 

As of earlier this week 12.1 per cent of the state has been declared in intense drought, 55.9 per cent in drought and 31.5 as drought-affected.

The new readings followed rainfalls on Friday evening and over the weekend. Unfortunately not much rain was recorded in the Nyngan area with only one millimeter recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology from Friday to Sunday.