Senator Bernardi Accidentally Helps Primary School Reach Nearly 200x Their Fundraising Target

A primary school in South Australia decided to raise funds for a charity that sends girls in African countries to school.

Craigburn Primary School in Adelaide has found themselves the subject of Senator Cory Bernardi's criticism after deciding to hold a charity fundraising day where students are encouraged to wear a dress or casual clothes to school.

The fundraising was for a charity called "Do It In a Dress", which helps to improve schools and gives girls scholarships in African countries like Sierra Leone and Uganda.

The school aimed to reach a target of $900 through gold coin donations from those wearing a dress or casual clothes. Senator Bernardi, however, criticised the fundraiser for what he perceived as "gender morphing" due to some male students opting to wear a dress in support of the cause.

One school in SA now has 'wear a dress day'. This gender morphing is really getting absurd #auspol https://t.co/399EoSQxYz
— Cory Bernardi (@corybernardi) September 20, 2017

The school's principal, Paul Luke, told the ABC that none of the students were forced to wear dresses and could opt to wear casual clothes instead.

"It's about a casual clothes day that supports an organisation that focuses on supporting young female students in Africa and kids can wear casual clothes or just a regular school uniform," he said.

Comedian and creator of Please Like Me, Josh Thomas, came to the rescue of the primary school children, deciding to donate $1,000 to their campaign over Twitter.

This is the charity these kids were raising money for: https://t.co/mAqhwr1wD9

I will donate $1000 because kids doing charity is nice. https://t.co/ZMPbLnzCaF
— Josh Thomas 🌈 (@JoshThomas87) September 20, 2017

He also pointed out that this has ZERO to do with the current giant Survey Monkey plebiscite on marriage equality that Senator Bernardi's party later tried to suggest.

The #DoItInADress fundraiser isn't 'bizarelly timed!' This is @DHughesy doing it in a dress to help girls access education in 2012. pic.twitter.com/QT2D3PFLrf
— Josh Thomas 🌈 (@JoshThomas87) September 21, 2017

And with that, the donations went wild. Since Wednesday, the school has far exceeded their target by raising more than $180,000 (as of this writing). That's about 200 times the amount they were hoping to hit. Splendid.

The principal explained to the ABC that while Senator Bernardi's comments weren't welcome, they helped to raise an insane amount for the cause.

"If I look at it in the context of the amount of awareness it's raised and the money, I think it's superb," the principal said.

Take that. Craigburn Primary School: 1. Bernardi: error.

If you want to donate, head to their fundraising page on Do It In a Dress.

Photo: Parliament of Australia