By Victoria Stone-Meadows
A Cranbourne based not-for-profit is helping students in the region reach their full potential through grants, support and initiatives.
The Assisting Casey Education (ACE) Foundation is led by a group of community stalwarts who want to see the next generation of students in Casey achieve their very best.
The foundation supports local students through bursaries and programs that aim to give those students at a disadvantage a helping hand.
Chair of the board of the foundation, Dr Leon Shapero has a 30-year history of working closely with education providers in the Casey region.
“I wanted to expand the reach of assistance I could provide to students in the region, so started the foundation three years ago,” he said.
“The vision of the foundation is to assist children in Grades six to 12 overcome hurdles in their educational pursuits.”
Through fund-raising drives such as an annual dinner, the foundation is able to provide financial assistance to students facing adversity who are enrolled in state schools in Casey.
Dr Shapero said the foundation provided $500 every year to each public secondary and primary school in the municipality for students that needed a helping hand.
“The schools then select five students who are deserving of a reward and encouragement for their hard work and diligence,” he said.
“These bursaries are not for the best and brightest but for kids who have shown an aptitude and sense of hard work to overcome hurdles such as cultural and language challenges, family fracture, social problems; really any kids working against hardship.”
The ACE foundation also supports a number of external programs that help students in Casey achieve their best at school.
“We take a day off each month to deliver 2500 meal replacement drinks to the high schools because lots of kids go to school with no breakfast or lunch with them,” Dr Shapero said.
“We provide free supervised tuition on three nights a week, we financially support the young mothers return to school program at Cranbourne Secondary.
“We also support operation Newstart which is a program to engage disengaged students in middle high school.”
The most recent project the ACE Foundation has embarked on is providing eye checks and glasses to children in primary schools.
Dr Shapero said he was very proud of this new program and as a glasses wearer he understands how expensive eye care could be.
“We pay for everything; it’s the project we are most excited about right now,” he said.
The foundation has organised with teachers and parents for optometrists to visit primary schools in the area to provide free eye testing to students and glasses for those that need them.
“The optometrists test six and seven-year-old students and we provide kids who need them with glasses for free so parents don’t have to pay,” he said.
“We have most recently rolled this program out at two schools and we are in the process of getting the third and fourth schools’ permission.”
While the board of the foundation is made up of community leaders including business, school and local government representatives, Dr Shapero said the backbone of the operation was administrator Teresa Muratore.
Ms Muratore said three years ago she had no idea how to approach running a foundation, but quickly found her feet in the role.
“I did say I had no experience, other than making coffees but I came in and had an interview and I don’t really know how I got started but what I was doing worked and no-one has taken away it from me,” she said.
“I like talking to people; I am a chatter – that’s what works really well and I am able to network and engage in relationship forming.”
Both Ms Muratore and Dr Shapero are proud that their small volunteer team means the foundation has no overheads and 100 per cent of the money they raise is given back to the students who need it most.
The major fund-raising event for the foundation is their annual dinner, with the 2017 ACE Founation Dinner falling on Saturday 21 October this year.
To find out more about the foundation or how you can get involved, contact 0459 520 010 or visit facebook.com/aidingcaseyeducation.
