A PAPER chain stretching 1,600 metres was fashioned across the Humber Bridge on Saturday as part of a fundraising mission by big-hearted Barton youngsters.

Kids and teens at the youth centre on Maltby Lane fashioned the chain to help the charity work of the Barton Rotary Club, which has been raising funds to buy special filtering straws for poor communities in Columbia, South America to help them turn dirty river water into drinking water.

The youths, all aged between nine to 17, decided to get involved after hearing what a difference the straws could make to stop the spread of illnesses in poorer countries.

Pat Such, project youth worker, said one of the youngsters at the centre suggested making the paper chain - which stretched from the South Tower to the North Tower - to raise some cash and the idea took on from there.

"They have been making the paper chain from about March and have worked on it steadily since about then," she said.

The Life Straw Project has been supported by the rotary club for three years and already the club has purchased an average of 12,000 straws, each of which cost £2 and contains three different filters to get rid of bacteria to make the water clean enough to drink.

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