ROMANIAN schoolchildren are looking forward to a brighter future thanks to the efforts of kids at a Blackpool primary school.

Children at Revoe County Primary School helped raise £5,000 to fund parent Stuart Ward's 1,500-mile mission to improve conditions for kids in Bucharest.

Stuart and friend Mick Blundell set off on May 6 in a seven-and-a-half tonne truck full of pens, paper, typewriters, photocopiers and other educational equipment to schools and orphanages in Romania's poverty-stricken capital.

Two weeks later they returned with a sense of achievement, but also a realisation that their work was just a drop in the ocean.

Stuart said: "We visited about half a dozen schools and orphanages and the reception we got from the children was fantastic. Every smile was worth a thousand pounds.

"You can describe the poverty you've seen, but you cannot make people understand unless they have actually experienced it.

"The people have nothing and it makes you realise how much we take for granted."

Stuart intends to return to Bucharest at some point so that he can help more.

He said: "I'd like to thank everyone who helped in whatever way. Every tiny effort makes a difference."

Thirty-eight children in Ruth Day's class at Revoe began fundraising last October when Mrs Day herself returned from Romania and wanted to do something to help the situation she had seen.

The children, aged eight and nine, began by holding bring-and-buy sales at school and the fundraising snowballed into a major project involving other schools, churches and the local community.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.