P3 PUPILS at Mauchline Primary collected an amazing 1,700 books in two weeks for a charity appeal.

The caring youngsters sprung into action when they heard about the lack of books in poverty-stricken parts of the Philippines.

Through the Links Scotland: Building Bridges for Children organisation, they decided to play their part in helping out.

It was while they were taking part in a project, called Reading For Fun, that the Mauchline youngsters realised how fortunate they were compared to other countries.

This was enough motivation for them to organise a charity book collection involving the whole school , hoping to send a couple of boxes full to the children who had no books.

Two weeks later, they spent an afternoon going round the other classes to gather in the books and were stunned to find they had amassed 1,700 books.

Douglas Innes from Links Scotland called into Mauchline Primary to pick up the massive piles of books and to thank the pupils — in particular P3 for their great work.

Links Scotland was set up to address three major issues in the Philippines — hunger, education and communities.