
Christmas activities
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Update on The Smith Family Toy and Book Appeal
The Smith Family believe that education is one of the world’s most powerful change agents. This is why we help young Australians to overcome educational inequality caused by poverty, working with thousands of children and their families to empower them to unlock better futures for themselves through education. This has been a strategic priority for many years.
Given our core focus on education and our ambition to provide our Learning for Life program to more young Australians, in 2023 we conducted a strategic review of our annual Toy and Book Appeal.
After extensive consultation with key stakeholders, including The Smith Family team members who work directly with families, we determined that we must prioritise helping children to achieve better educational outcomes for the long-term.
Unfortunately, there are one in six children growing up in disadvantage in Australia. Poverty is blocking their progress at every turn and directly impacting their educational outcomes.
More children than ever need our help to overcome the daily challenges that prevent them from having the same opportunities as other children to achieve their best at school. The demand for our Learning for Life program outstrips what we can currently provide, but our goal is to make the program available to as many children who need it as possible.
To help us achieve this it was decided that the long-running Toy and Book Appeal would be discontinued after Christmas 2023. By redeploying the resources for the Toy and Book Appeal into our core Learning for Life program, we can help hundreds more children, in addition to the 71,000 young Australians we are already supporting through the program, to access extra learning and mentoring programs, delivering lasting and permanent benefits for them, their family and their communities.
We continue to hold our annual Christmas Appeal to fund education programs for children, and our sponsors will also still be able to elect to provide a Christmas gift to their sponsored student via digital vouchers or physical gifts.
We remain steadfast in our mission to empower families and young Australians to unlock their potential through education, and we look forward to supporting more families and young people to harness the power of education.
We extend our warmest appreciation and gratitude to everyone who has supported the Toy and Book Appeal over the years, from our incredible volunteers, members of VIEW Clubs of Australia, donors, partners and our team members.