Lake Gwelup students, from left, Daniella Savva, Finna Brierley, Jacob Stone and Jake Stewart throw coins into a fundraiser money-spinner .
Camera IconLake Gwelup students, from left, Daniella Savva, Finna Brierley, Jacob Stone and Jake Stewart throw coins into a fundraiser money-spinner . Credit: Supplied/Marcus Whisson

Race to honour Anzac spirit

Anne Gartner, Stirling TimesStirling Times

For the first time this year, and to coincide with the school’s 100th anniversary, Lake Gwelup hosted a dawn service on Anzac Day at which Vietnam veteran and RSL president Graham Edwards spoke.

It built on the school’s tradition of hosting an Anzac Gift, a flat foot handicap race with students from years 1 to 7 competing.

Now the school is hoping to raise about $90,000 to build a war memorial, featuring a bronze sculpture of a WWI serviceman and a student, with some funding already secured from state and federal sources.

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Money also has been raised through the Gwelup IGA.

The school continued its fundraising campaign on Friday when a community radio station attended the campus to help get the word out.

Deputy principal Jodi Piercey said the school’s decision to create the memorial was to make the Anzac spirit a tangible experience for the students.

‘We want Anzac Day to be a meaningful experience for the kids,’ she said.

‘We have about 10 to 12 service families at the school community.

‘But one of the big things was that when we speak about the Anzac spirit with five or six-year-olds, they have no reference base for that.

‘Now we can remind them about the day when we came really early to school and the war veteran spoke and we had a breakfast together ” that is the spirit of the Anzacs.’

Ms Piercey said the school was also planning an artist-in-resident program next year where poppies will be created to ‘bleed’ out of the sculpture.