Coronavirus information for our supporters

In these exceptional times, we’re thinking of you, our valued donors, and everyone else who’s been affected by COVID-19.

We'd like to thank you for your continued support for Australian children living in poverty. Thanks to you, we can continue to support the education of children living in families who are really struggling to make ends meet, both during this crisis and into the future.

Now, more than ever, Australian children living in poverty need your support, as they will be hardest hit by this unprecedented crisis.

The last thing we would want to see right now is children living in disadvantage falling further behind in their learning as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The children and families we support remain at the heart of everything we do.

Our team is working closely with our families to help them navigate the ongoing changes to their schooling environment and minimise disruption to their education.

Your support will help us continue to provide our vital programs, such as the student2student reading program and iTrack mentoring program, delivered online to students. And we are turning our focus to offer other online numeracy and literacy programs for students in need to give them and their families extra learning help and support throughout this crisis.

It is only because of the generosity of supporters like you, that we can work with them to keep them on track.

Information for Sponsors

What does this mean for your sponsorship?

The sponsorship you provide is vital in ensuring your student can continue to keep up with their education. This year your student may need a computer, more textbooks, school shoes or data for online learning and they can use their financial support to obtain these. In addition, our Learning for Life Coordinators are working closely with our families to help them navigate these current changes and minimise disruption to their education.

Where needed, we continue to work hard to ensure that our learning and mentoring programs can be delivered through other methods where feasible. Some of our programs, such as the student2student reading program and iTrack mentoring program, are already delivered digitally to students -  and we are turning our focus to offer other online numeracy and literacy programs for students in need at this time.

To continue our work, we really need your continued support at this time when our families are at their most vulnerable.

Correspondence with your student

We understand that you may wish to write to your student to offer them words of support. As our capacity to open and forward mailed letters has reduced at this time, we encourage you to send any correspondence to your student via our My Smith Family online platform.

We are still available to answer your enquiries. Our sponsor helpline and email address will operate as normal, but please bear with us as we may receive a higher volume of enquiries at this time.

Sponsor helpline: 1800 633 622

Sponsor email support: sponsorship@thesmithfamily.com.au