How wonderful is it to welcome in a New Year and reflect on the work completed in the previous twelve months? So much achieved, and so much to be grateful for.

The Emmanuel College Foundation held a donor event prior to Christmas and welcomed our donors who collectively contributed more than $1.1million to the Edmund Rice Centre Capital Appeal.

The Edmund Rice Centre, and the opportunities it provides was made possible through the philanthropy and generosity of many donors, and the privilege of having such a supportive community makes the delivery of projects such as this rewarding on many levels.

The official opening of the ERC was a major event for the College where Principal Peter Morgan officially recognised the contributions of alumni, businessman and donor, Colin McKenna. Read more about this tribute in the Principal’s opening address here.

The values held by the late Colin McKenna are echoed by outgoing Chair of the Foundation Board, Glenys Phillpot who gave her time so generously at the helm.

“What a rewarding experience it has been to be involved with the Emmanuel College Foundation for the past three years!

In that time the skilled and enthusiastic Foundation team has worked hard to gather from the school and the broader community, funds to assist with the Edmund Rice Centre build, provide so many scholarships to support young people to achieve their goals in their education, seen the donated funds grow under the watchful eye of the investment and finance committee, and secured opportunities to assist the school and its students into the future.” explained Glenys Phillpot.

The Foundation is delighted to share that alumni, Maree Lane has kindly stepped into Glenys’ rather large shoes, as the new Chair and we are excited to continue to build the momentum created under Glenys’ guidance with Maree.

We are also thrilled to announce that alumni, Liana Mahoney, featured in the most recent Emmanuel College Connection, has also joined the Board as a Director. Liana brings a plethora of legal experience and has hit the ground running as we review our Governance documents.

Moving forward, the Annual Tax Appeal will commence in the coming weeks with a returned focus on scholarships- a topic particularly important in the current economic environment.

“Your donation to the Foundation’s 2025 appeal will make a tangible difference and continue the great effort from previous years, to guarantee Emmanuel College teachings are available to the greatest number who aspire to excellence” said Glenys Phillpot.

It is essential for the Foundation to grow the corpus with the aim of creating a sustainable Scholarship program. This enables us to grow the number of scholarships in the future and to sustain growth in the delivery of the scholarship program. Under the strong guidance of the Investment Committee and with sound advice from our Finance Advisor, John Brereton, we have witnessed considerable growth in our corpus over the last twelve months through activating our wise investment strategy.

The 2025 appeal will be coming out to you in coming weeks but if you would like to be the first to donate please link here.

On behalf of the Emmanuel College Foundation, I can say we are very proud to have forged such a strong connection with our generous community of donors and we look forward to achieving many more great things together in the future.

Alison Byrne | Executive Officer Emmanuel College Foundation