SENIOR SCHOOL
Harper House – Legacy Australia
Harper House supports a number of charities
and has done so over a number of years. In
recent times we have tried to link the charity
that we sponsor to the boys within the
House or past students of the House. From
2008 -2010 the Harper House community
sponsored The Mission to Seafarers, which
came about as the result of an email from Fr.
Graeme Weaver, an Old Boy of the School
and Harper House Captain from 1968.
From 2011-2013 we supported The Gutsy
Group, which is a volunteer-run organisation
working to make a real difference in the
lives of people living with Crohn’s disease
and ulcerative colitis, otherwise known as
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). During this
period of time it was meaningful to Harper
House as we as a community had students
who suffered from this disease. These boys
have now graduated and left the School.
This year and for the next few years Harper
House will be supporting Legacy Australia.
Legacy is dedicated to caring for the families
of deceased and incapacitated veterans.
Today Legacy’s caring and compassionate
service assists over 100,000 widows and
1,900 children and dependants with a
disability. Legacy is a voluntary organisation
supported by veterans, servicemen and
women, and volunteers drawn from all walks
of life. Their support and services now extend
to include the dependants of members of
today’s Australian Defence Force who lose
their lives as a result of their military service.
There are over 5,900 volunteers around
Australia who act as mentors to the widows
and their families and who ensure Legacy’s
promise to care for the families of deceased
veterans is kept.
The Harper House community have chosen to
support this charity as many Old Guildfordians
from Harper House, including Charles Harper’s
three sons, lost their lives to war. There is also
a current student, Henry Diddams, who sadly
lost his father, Blaine Diddams in 2012 while
he was serving in Afghanistan.
The Harper House students have been selling
Legacy badges and collecting money within
the School community this year and have
already collected a substantial amount to
donate to Legacy fundraising.
This fundraising and philanthropy makes a
difference for the boys and is a catalyst to
inspire them to look beyond themselves.
It has had a very positive effect and you
can witness the ignition of empathy and
compassion within the boys involved.
Gavin Swan
Head of Harper House
14
Woodbridge House – home of
the Woodbridge Whopper!
Each year, the students of Woodbridge
House will choose to support a charity
that has a special connection to one of
our students. Over the past five years,
Woodbridge House has supported:
• The Make a Wish Foundation
• Research into Rhett Syndrome
• The Cancer Council
• The Red Cross Indonesian Tsunami
Appeal
• Anglicare
Woodbridge House utilise a number of
fundraising ideas such as sausage sizzles,
lose change donations, collections following
House Chapel Services and our famous
‘Woodbridge Whopper’.
Supporting worthy charities ensures that our
boys gain a greater understanding of the
needs of those less fortunate and encourage
the values of compassion and citizenship.
These fundraising campaigns are led by our
House Prefects and are always very well
supported by the whole House.
Nick Jones
Head of House
Bennett House – PLAN
PLAN is one of the world’s largest children’s
development organisations which works
to ensure that children have fundamental
rights. These include having a quality
education, having a safe place and time to
play in order to get the best possible start
in life, and having access to food and clean
water by educating communities about
nutrition, farming procedures and sanitation.
Furthermore, PLAN works to educate
communities to reduce risk in the event of
natural disasters and, if such an event occurs,
PLAN responds within twenty-four hours
to meet the immediate survival needs of
children and their families.
For the last twenty-five years, Bennett House
has been supporting PLAN by sponsoring a
child. In this time we have fostered many
different children, whose growth has been
witnessed by the boys in Bennett House
from the photographs provided to us by the
charity. Letters and postcards have been
sent to these children to let them know w \