Welcome to the 4th issue of Mentoring Matters for 2024, our quarterly newsletter!

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on an incredible year of growth, connection, and community support. It has been a busy and fulfilling year for our team, and we are nearly ready to take a well-deserved break to refresh for an even bigger 2025.

This year, we’ve welcomed new school partners, new students, new mentors, and new families into the Standing Tall community. We are also grateful for the ongoing support from our returning mentors, sponsors, and community champions who stand with us year after year.

Your generosity—whether as donors, volunteers, or school partners—fuels our mission to deliver impactful, school-based mentoring that truly makes a difference in the lives of young people.

This term alone has been a busy one! We hosted our AGM and released the 2023/24 Annual Report. We proudly launched our Together, We Thrive regular giving program, released our Annual Appeal through a community letterbox drop, introduced our Wills and Bequests appeal, and established a partnership with the Victorian Container Deposit Scheme.

We launched donation e-gift cards, benefitted from the Hamilton Kangaroos’ inaugural Fun Run, and were honoured to again be named a donation partner by the Combined Churches of Hamilton for the Carols by Candlelight event.

A highlight for term 4 was our chance to come together and celebrate the year’s achievements with 154 attendees at the Hamilton Golf Club as we hosted our combined schools end-of-year event.

And, of course, on top of all that, we still delivered our 12 weekly school-based mentoring sessions, which continue to be the heart of everything we do.

Thank you for being part of this journey—whether through time, resources, or encouragement. Your support has made 2024 a truly remarkable year.

We hope you enjoy this issue and join us in celebrating the amazing work happening across our community.

Happy reading and wishing you a wonderful festive season!