Ros Rowe has seen many good things in the 14 years since she first took a punt on her horses and her dream of equine intervention in the lives of struggling youngsters.

But yesterday provided one of the biggest dividends, and perhaps some divine intervention, in an envelope sent to Hawke's Bay Today with an anonymous donation of $3000 for the Leg-Up Trust.

In the form of a bank cheque, it came with an unsigned note asking: "Would you please forward this to the appropriate authority as I have no address."

Explaining the mystery was a clipping also included of a story published in Hawke's Bay Today two months ago, on July 18, revealing a cut in funding had almost put an end to one of the trust's programmes for school children, and that, putting dollars and cents aside in favour of commonsense, the trust would have to make it to the end of year providing the courses "free of charge."

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Told of the gift in a late-afternoon phone call yesterday, Mrs Rowe started the guessing-game of "how much" at $100, and gave-up in disbelief she got to $1500 and was told "keep going."

"Isn't that beautiful," she said as she was told the actual figure. "Thanks whoever it was. They've done something really beautiful for the kids."

She then revealed that more than $16,000 had previously come-in from anonymous donors, the combined generosity meaning the programmes can go ahead for the rest of the year.

She said she wished she could show the donors the smiles of the children as they became aware that people they didn't know still cared.

"We would rather get sponsorship of this sort," she said, saying it came without the paperwork and ticking of boxes required for many sources. "There's not a box for the smiles. There isn't a box to tick for that."