Groups of pupils from eight schools relished in their accomplishments last night as the "Dollars For Hours: Youth and Community in Partnership" project, organised by leading insurer PartnerRe, came to an end.

With the theme "pay it forward" the youngsters descended upon various parts of the community to volunteer their time to eight charities. In return PartnerRe donated $20,000 to each school, a total of $160,000.

"These donations will go toward improvements and enhancements for after-school programmes," CEO Patrick Thiele said. "It will go toward refurbishing classrooms and libraries. "As well as outfitting a new science lab, new design and technology equipment and enhancing IB programmes." The company's total revenues last December were $4.2 billion with $15.7 billion in total assets.

"Education is important to PartnerRe and as a Bermudian company staffed primarily by Bermudians we have a real interest in Bermuda, its people and in particular, its young people," Mr. Thiele previously reflected.

At a reception for participants and organisers, he added: "This will help achieve PartnerRe's goal of making a contribution to education in Bermuda."

"We believe that helping maintain and improving the quality of education in Bermuda is the single most important way we can accomplish that aim."

Ellen Kate Horton, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education thanked the students for stepping up to the plate and spending hours over a period of six weeks to take part in the scheme, which is in its second year. She commented: "In the words of Mark Twain, 'kindness is the language which the death can hear and the blind can see.'

"On behalf of the Minister Randolph Horton and the Ministry of Education, Sports and Recreation, I offer my appreciation as we celebrate the outstanding work achieved by this programme."

Various displays by participating schools could be seen, which showed photos of the hard work contributed by the pupils.

At the CedarBridge Academy display, Kevin Clarke, 18, an S4 student, was very proud of the specially-designed table the school made for wheelchair bound children at the Wind-Reach recreational village.

He explained of the photo displays: "This is a table that we made for people in wheelchairs and its for them to create a garden for them to reach into and plant what they want instead of bending down. Our group designed and built the table through design and technology classes and it took us a week to do. We had a piece of paper that showed us all of the dimensions plus our teacher helped us on the way."

Nick Rinehimer, 17, of Saltus Grammar School explained how his group banded together to paint five rooms at the Sunshine League children's home.

He described: "We painted stripes on one room, solids on the other and then contrasting colours in the rest. The goal was to make the rooms a little more inhabitable, to make the children more at home.

"We also painted a mural on the dining room hall, it was a beach scene. It was a combined effort of six weeks in total – we started around 9 a.m. and ended around noon every Saturday.

"I heard that the children there were very happy and pleased with our work. "As a school we're all going back to paint the rest of the interior of the Sunshine League a part of our required community service."

Schools that took part, with groups of 14 to 18-year-olds were: The Berkeley Institute, CedarBridge Academy, Saltus Grammar School, Mount Saint Agnes Academy, Somersfield Academy, Bermuda High School, Bermuda Institute and Warwick Academy.