Please Help Brentry Pupils Get Their Budgies Back

Hi. My name is Geraint Clarke, and I am very proud to be able to say that I am the Head Teacher of Brentry Primary School in North Bristol. Seven years ago, we found a very poorly budgie stuck in a drain in one of our playgrounds. We nursed Linda (yep, Linda) back to health and bought her a partner - Phil. After some time in a cage, we got them a lovely aviary to live in. This allowed us to rehome a few budgies from a lady local to us. We then started to breed the budgies, quite successfully, to the point where we had twenty. All the time, the pupils have been involved. Our Year 6 pupils look after them - clean, feed and water them, and the younger children check in on them daily. Many of our pupils who have additional needs spend time with the budgies, which they love. They have become part of the Brentry School family. Very sadly, on the night of March 8th 2023, two people entered our school site, broke into the aviary and attempted to steal the budgies. They found some nest boxes which we think they used to take a few, and then left the doors open so the others escaped. The aviary was left empty, and who knows how many budgies were left, no doubt terrified, to fend for themselves on a freezing, wet night. Whilst we are hopeful, we are also realistic and know we probably won't see any of these birds again, despite sharing our story widely. The two people were caught on camera but weren't recognisable, so we hold little hope of them being caught despite the police trying to help. When the children found out, there were lots of tears. To be honest, the adults shed a few too. Our hope now is to start again. With your help, if possible. We would like to purchase a more secure aviary and a live-streaming camera that we will use to monitor the birds for educational reasons and also to deter any future thieves. We would also like to buy some new budgies, and breed the population back up. We can't afford to do this from the school budget, so thought we would see if any kind people could help us. Please donate whatever you can, however small an amount, to help the pupils of Brentry get some budgies back, and put smiles back on their faces. Thank you!