Gunnedah Community Scholarship Fund working group holds Big Ideas session

The concept behind Thursday’s Big Ideas session was to brainstorm some ideas to ensure the longevity of the fund, with community members putting their heads together to try and come up with a solution.

The fund is currently supported through local businesses, donations, Gunnedah Shire Council, the Rotary Club of Gunnedah West and an anonymous donor.

Each year, the fund gifts numerous young people with finances to pursue tertiary education. To date, more than $300,000 has been raised and distributed to local youth since the fund was formed 14 years ago.

Gunnedah Shire Council’s youth development officer Sewa Emojong said core funding would run out eventually and new funds were needed to sustain outgoing funds.

Ms Emojong facilitated the session with working group chair Gae Swain who said the fund is unique to Gunnedah and instead of “asking and asking” the same people for help, the working group was “trying to find different ways of raising money”.

“It’s been done on quite a small scale. We’re struggling to find a way of getting it to go out further,” Mrs Swain said.

Among those who attended the session were Shay Barr (Gunnedah Youth Council), Wendy Marsh (Rotary Club of Gunnedah), Karen Mooney (St Mary’s College), Gai Schubert (Gunnedah High School), Stacey Cooke (Gunnedah Chamber of Commerce and Rotary 2380), Heather Lidwinski (Apex Club of Gunnedah) and Lyn Pengilly (Gunnedah TAFE).

Heather Lidwinski said Apex had hoped to donate to the fund in previous years and members were now learning towards a youth focus for the club’s next project. Stacey Cooke said the chamber and Rotary 2380 “would like to be a part of the conversation of the future of the scholarship fund and see where we can contribute”. 

“The only way I knew about the scholarship fund was through Rotary [so] we’d like to see what we can do to get the word out,” Mrs Cooke said.

Both Lyn Pengilly and Karen Mooney have children who have benefited from the fund and said it’s “very valuable”.

“I’m really grateful,” Mrs Pengilly said.

“It’s a boost to being able to pay for textbooks or a computer program.

“It also gives [the youth] the confidence to know the community is backing them.”

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Ms Emojong said she was “really happy with the outcome” of the session and “it laid some really solid foundations for us to continue our work together”.

“It was really great to see groups come together and collaborate for a common cause and identify common challenges. We’re all in a similar boat, no matter what cause,” she said.

“It’s great to see that shared interest within the community.

“It was good to start that dialogue between the different groups to see if maybe we can work together more effectively in the future.”