As we reflect on the first 6 months of this year, we would like to acknowledge our donors and families for their generous commitment and support. Your generosity puts into practice what we so actively teach our girls here: “to leave after you something on which others may build” - Mother Gonzaga Barry.

In Term Two, we ran our 'Feels Like Home' Annual Giving campaign to help in making Loreto Normanhurst a home for current and future generations of Boarders and Day students. We would like to acknowledge the thoughtful donations to our Bursary Program and Building Fund this year and thank you for your kind generosity for our ‘Feels Like Home’ Annual Giving campaign. Our Annual Giving Appeal was a great success, we have raised $628,156 towards the Building Fund, with $770,000 pledged towards the fund and $63,380 donated for our Bursary Program.

Your thoughtful donations to our Building Fund will go towards our Boarding School development scheduled to commence construction in 2023. The Boarding School is the first step on our 2047 Master Plan journey and you can be confident that the impact of your gift will be felt for generations to come. Our new Boarding School will open in 2025, with modern facilities and spaces designed to be used by both Boarding and Day students.

Over the last 6 months we have held several events and activities to raise funds for our Bursary Program and your donations have contributed to raise much needed funds to allow us to expand the reach of the holistic education that Mary Ward envisioned for all young women, to students who could not otherwise access it.

Read below from Grace Ridge (Class of '09) on the need for support for the Boarding School and Bursary program.

I had received a small bursary in Year 7, but after that I was a full fee student all the way through. I can tell you that a bursary would have significantly reduced the amount of stress at home. I was one of many boarding students in a similar situation. We just got on with it though and tried to capitalise on the opportunities we had in front of us in the meantime, knowing the sacrifices being made for us to be at school.

Overall, the sense of community in the school, but particularly amongst the boarders, was tangible. The further I got through school, the more friends across all year groups in the boarding school I collected – much like sisters. I think that had a lot to do with how I became Boarder Captain for year 12 – I always say I wasn’t overly academic, but school gave me much more in other ways.

It is so important that Loreto continues to turn out community-minded young women who can go in to their communities, contribute, and help address the many challenges these areas face in a world that continues to change at an ever-increasing pace. They deserve to have the gates of opportunity opened for them in the form of bursaries, and to live and learn in an environment that is designed for them to thrive.”

An Impact Statement has been developed to summarise the reach of your generous gifts in 2022. Click here to see the full impact statement in detail.