Christmas wishes DO come true

A special Christmas Wish, made by a student of Maraylya Public School came true today when she met her Eco Heroes, Daniel and William Clarke, Authors of Fight for Survival.

After receiving a touching email from Gabriella’s mother about how much Daniel and William’s quest to save the orangutan had made an impact on her daughter and her class, she mentioned how the first item on Gabriella’s Christmas Wish List was to one day meet Daniel and William.

With this information the boys contacted Gabriella’s school and, with the help of her teacher, Mrs Fiona Mackey, organised a surprise visit to her Year 2/3 students who have been using Daniel and William’s book as a learning resource for the past year.

The students were told the local paper was coming to do a story on their efforts to minimise the use of Palm Oil as a way of reducing the impact of deforestation of orangutan habitat and were not aware that, along with the local paper, Daniel and William were going to walk around the corner into their classroom to surprise them.

The children sat patiently waiting for the photographer to come in the room, instead, Daniel and William knocked on the classroom door and entered to gasps of amazement and surprise.  Initially the students had their mouths open in shock but gradually they realised that Daniel and William were standing in their classroom in front of them.

The boys were at the school for over 2 hours answering questions, taking photos and signing their latest copies of their book, Fight for Survival as well as their first book, Tears In the Jungle; A Children’s Adventure to Save the Orangutan.

The questions the children were asking were absolutely amazing and very well thought out.  William was taken by surprise when asked about the timezone difference between Indonesia and Sydney (4 hours).  A real credit to their teacher, Mrs Mackey, and the whole school community for providing the kids with such enquiring minds and well educated concepts.  Many of the families already have the POI App (Palm Oil Investigations) and are very conscious about only buying products either without palm oil or products which are made using sustainable palm oil.

Thank you so much to all of the parents that came along today and provided morning tea (absolutely brilliant).  Fantastic brownies… I mean fantastic and the Cake… Ohh Wow !!  Daniel and William couldn’t believe it when they saw the cover of their latest book ON A CAKE !!!

We had a really wonderful time visiting your beautiful school.  Have a very Merry Christmas and a safe holiday from all of us.