Student leaders from six Sunshine Coast schools will come together for the second annual Buderim Foundation Youth Summit to promote life-long philanthropy among Sunshine Coast youth.
Buderim Foundation Youth Committee chair, Graham Tamblyn said the Summit was part of the Foundation’s Youth Philanthropy Project, which aims to introduce the concept of Philanthropy and its value to the community to young people, inspiring them to adopt it throughout their lives.
“Philanthropy is vitally important and the Youth in Philanthropy Project will see the students learn more about the concept of philanthropy, why it’s important to society and the power giving can have,” Mr Tamblyn said.
“We hope that by talking to the student leaders, we will encourage long-term, and even life-long involvement in the community,” he said.
“We also want them to work directly with the Buderim Foundation, which aims to enrich and enhance the quality of life for Buderim and its residents by generating income from donations and bequests and providing grants for worthwhile community projects.
“To celebrate Philanthropy in a practical way, at the Summit each school group will be asked to come up with an idea for a Philanthropic project of their choice, and start work on an action plan which they will take back to their school.”
Mr Tamblyn said the aim was that the student leaders, aged between 10 and 16, from Matthew Flinders Anglican College, Chancellor State College, Buderim Mountain State School Montessori International College, Sunshine Coast Grammar School and Kawana State School, would then share what they have learned within their schools as they complete the project.
“Part of that process will include preparing a grant application for up to $150 ‘seed’ funding to help run the project, using a shortened version of the Foundation’s community grant application process.”
Mr Tamblyn said the students would have four months to deliver their project and later in the year present what they achieved and its impact at the Foundation’s Community Grants Celebration later in the year.
The Summit is to be opened by Member for Fairfax Ted O’Brien, who believes strongly in engaging with young people, and runs his own Generation Innovation project to inspire young entrepreneurs.
The Chair of the Buderim Foundation, Dr Russell Stitz will then outline the goals and structure of the Buderim Foundation, which is recognised as one of the top four regional Philanthropic Community Foundations in Australia. He will emphasise that the Foundation is committed to supporting the community into the future, building its corpus or capital base so that money earned from the investments will provide ever-increasing grants to community groups.
“As part of that, we have established a Youth Sub-fund, which is focused on providing grants 
specifically for programs benefiting our young people but we go further through programs like the Youth in Philanthropy Project, where we also foster a giving philosophy with the aim that that will also benefit everyone into the future.”
For more information on the Buderim Foundation, please visit the new website – www.buderimfoundation.org.au.
