SCHOOLBOY Liam Cutler was so affected by the miraculous escape of his "auntie" Sara Mapp in the tsunami disaster that he was prompted to raise money for other survivors.

The seven-year-old from Potterne, near Devizes, organised and ran a cake stall on Friday with his chums at the village primary school, raising £190.

Sara Mapp, who escaped relatively unscathed from the holiday island of Phi Phi in Thailand with her boyfriend Richard Smith and two other friends, is a friend of Liam's mother, Sandra, from schooldays.

Mrs Cutler said: "When Liam read about Sara's ordeal in the paper he was quite upset about it. We tried to reassure him but he stayed very quiet. He always keeps his worries inside him.

"During circle time at school he was asked if he had anything to say to the other children. He said he had something to say but he wanted to say it in private to a teacher.

"That's when it all came out. The teacher asked him if he would like to do something to raise money for the people who suffered in the disaster, and he came up with the idea of a cake stall.

"He has organised the whole thing. He got most of the parents making cakes and the rest of his class making posters to advertise the event."

Other pupils across the county have taken the tsunami appeal to heart. At Chippenham's Sheldon School, sixth formers exceeded their target of creating a mile of pennies on Friday raising £1,200 in the process.

Gareth Millington, head of sixth form, said: "It was stunning. It touched our hearts. It took more than three classes on Friday afternoon to count the lot."

In total Sheldon has raised more than £3,000 for the appeal.

Six girls from Sheldon School braved the rain and cold on Saturday and walked from the town to Lacock to raise money.

Rachel Rigby, Lucie Aplin, Lydia Cook, Stacey Larkworthy, Jessica Douglas and Emily Barrington strolled along the cycle path at Reybridge where mums waited with refreshments before ending up in Lacock where they collected money from people visiting the historic village. They raised more than £150 for Oxfam.

Students at St John's School and Community College have been taking part in various forms of fundraising for the tsunami appeal.

Friday was declared a non-uniform day at the Marlborough school and students had to pay £1 to go into class in their own clothes. That raised a total of more than £1,300.

Six Year 11 students Ginette Stewart, Olivia Hodges, Polly Strugnall, Lucinda Stanford, David Birch, Claire Mold and Caroline Reeve went a stage further and wore fancy dress for the day, raising another £385.

Meanwhile, a group of eight young Marlborough friends raised more than £220 by holding a sponsored swim at the town's leisure centre on Saturday.

The swim was the idea of St Peter's School friends and neighbours Jessica Smith, ten, and Jessica Loney, nine.

They enlisted the help of six of their friends and family members aged eight to 13 Laura and Ashley Morrel, Emma Jones, Natalie and Danielle Loney and Paul Smith and between them they swam 350 lengths of the pool.

Jessica Smith said: "We want to thank the leisure centre for letting us have the pool for an hour."

Lavington School pupils Alice Murray-Gourlay, 12, and Amy Pearce, 13, put on their running shoes on Saturday to raise more than £400 for the fund.

Accompanied on bicycle by four schoolmates, Lucy Wright, 13, Grace Van Den Burgh, 12, Victoria Hilder, 13, and Sophie Collins, Amy and Alice covered three miles along the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal in just under 28 minutes and might have made better if they hadn't waited for a bicycle chain to be refitted.

Meanwhile, entertainer Levi Summers, fiancee Sarah Woolgar, an auxillary nurse at Swindon's Great Western Hospital, and daughter Stacy are campaigning to give youngsters orphaned by the disaster the bear essentials of life by sending them teddies as well as medical aid.

The family from The Crescent, Quemerford, have sent up International Donate A Bear, which they are in the process of registering as a charity.

It idea is that donors should contribute £1 and a bear, plus an optional 25p extra gift. The money will go towards the cost of transporting the bears to the stricken countries, and the remainder will be used to buy aid such as injections to fight disease.

Ms Woolgar said: "By the time you have paid for the transport there will be about 50p left. We will put that extra money towards homes and care for the youngsters affected by the tsunami."

Mr Summers said they came up with the idea of the appeal after watching TV interviews with young survivors who had lost everything, including their parents. "A thought came across that they needed something of comfort and the thought of a teddy came into my head," he said. "Lots of adults and children have teddy bears in the attic that they don't use anymore and it seemed a good idea."

The appeal is already starting to take shape with 50 teddies finding themselves to their door and several more boxes are expected soon from a woman in Ohio, America who read about the campaign on the Internet.

Mr Summers said he was not trying to take money away from other charities who are dealing with the immediate crisis, and saw the International Donate a Bear scheme for a continued support role.

"This is a project I feel can be on going for the next six months."

For more information contact Mr Summers at levisummers@hotmail.com or phone him on 0786 7600893.