Three Orange schools and many Central West farmers will be given musical instruments, Lego and bales of hay thanks to the generosity of staff at a Sydney RSL club, Qantas Airways and the Rural Aid scheme.
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Orange High School and Canobolas Rural Technology High School will each receive musical instruments totalling $11,000 while Orange East Public School will receive $2000 worth of musical instruments on Tuesday.
Farmers at Molong and Borenore will receive more than $200,000 worth of hay bales on Monday as part of the drought-relief scheme.
Rural Aid general manager Wayne Thomson said they were contacted by the Merrylands RSL club after staff raised $30,000.
The kids are often the forgotten victims of the drought.
- Wayne Thomson, Rural Aid general manager
He said it was matched by the club's board and the total amount matched by QANTAS.
Mr Thomson said a further $120,000 had been raised through invidivual donations to help drought-affected areas.
He said the club had asked for the money to go to the Orange region as its CEO, Bryn Miller, was from Orange.
"That is all staff-generated and board has matched it," he said.
Rural Aid operates the Buy a Bale and the Gift of Music schemes for drought relief.
Mr Thomson said they had contacted the schools to ask what they needed.
"The kids are often the forgotten victims of the drought," he said.
"A lot of them dealing with drought based on farms are doing it tough. [The donation] gives them a bit of a break in their lives."
He said the high schools would receive guitars, trumpets, saxophones, clarinets, percussion sets, drums and $1000 boxes of Lego while the public school would receive percussion sets.
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