Kiwi Kids in the Great War

The school children of New Zealand, under direction from teachers, engaged in a massive campaign which succeeded in raising £149,000 by the end of the Great War 1918. When converted to decimal currency and adjusted for inflation this amounts to the over $12,200,000 as of 2014-2015 financial year.

Modern parents and educators will be further astounded at the diligence of the average wartime pupil when considering that this figure actually excludes the 350,000 comfort items made or donated by New Zealand school children. These individual comfort items were sent to Anzacs fighting at the coal face, or later spent on peace bonds to help returned veterans. New Zealand school children raised this money and material for the Education Department's War Relief Fund by completing innumerable tasks. Their efforts included acts of community service in return for donations, volunteering in the League of Young Gardeners, collecting surplus items about the home, making craft goods and even the sale or donation of their personal effects.

Like their Aussie cousins Kiwi school children were far removed from the mechanised horror of industrial scale warfare taking place on the Western Front. Theirs was a battle for care packages, letters and peace bonds. An ongoing struggle extending almost half a decade for many who waited to see loved ones return. The knowledge that fathers, brothers and other close relatives or beloved teachers may never return was a constant stress for children in wartime Australia. Many of these same children waited in vain without hope of ever seeing their Anzac again. Many more children welcomed home broken Diggers rendered unrecognisable by the physical and mental scars of modern war.