36 $5,000 Scholarships to Waikato Secondary Students

David Johnstone Charitable Trust Offers 36 $5,000 Scholarships to Waikato Secondary Students

Waikato students are being invited to line up for their share of the 2012 distribution from a charitable trust founded by an education-minded Waikato farmer. Now in its 17th year, the David Johnstone Charitable Trust, which is managed by Guardian Trust, continues to demonstrate how important tailored wealth management is to sustainable philanthropic giving.

Last year, the trust awarded $180,000 in scholarships to new students at Waikato tertiary institutions, and 36 scholarships of $5,000 each are once more up for grabs by students entering their first year of study in science or teaching at Waikato University, or any field of study at the Waikato Institute of Technology.

Guardian Trust distributed the nomination forms to the 39 secondary schools in the trust’s designated area in late August, and criteria for scholarship applications are the same as in previous years: each school may nominate one student in each of the following categories:

• Waikato University – science-related degrees (Bachelors of Science, Engineering, Science & Technology, or Computing and Mathematical Sciences)
• Waikato University – teaching degrees
• Waikato Institute of Technology – all qualifications

Twelve scholarships of $5,000 are available in each of the three categories. The number of scholarships awarded will depend on qualifying students, and final numbers will be determined by the selection committee.

Nominations for scholarships close at 10am on Tuesday 25 September 2012. Following a meeting of the selection committee in mid-October, recommendations will be made, approved by the trustees, and scholarship recipients selected and informed. The selection committee consists of the four independent trustees, Guardian Trust client manager Eileen Slater, and two or three invited members from the education sector.

The scholarship recipients and their families will be invited to attend a formal presentation at the Bronze Room at Waikato Stadium on Wednesday 7 November 2012.

David Johnstone was a well-known farming identity in the Waikato. Many years of hard work – and trial and error – made him a success in his field, but he harboured a lifelong wish to have had a better education. His answer was to form his own charitable trust, one of the principal objectives of which is to assist young people to further their education. The trust has distributed nearly $1 million in the last five years.

About David Johnstone
David Johnstone was born in 1909 into one of the area’s strongest and oldest pioneering and farming families. One of eight children, he left school at an early age to help to run the family farm after his father drowned while crossing the flooded Waipa River.

Mr Johnstone was ‘man-powered’ out of the Army in 1940, in a practice whereby the most able men – those considered to be of a calibre that the community could not do without – were held back from service in World War II.

At the age of 62 he sold his immediate family’s farm in Whatawhata to his nephews and took on Orini Downs, a 1,000-hectare farm at Orini. He also developed a hotel on Norfolk Island, and was a founding member and benefactor to the National Fieldays.

About Guardian Trust

Established in 1882, Guardian Trust (The New Zealand Guardian Trust Company Limited) is the leading corporate trustee in New Zealand.

Through its network of offices across New Zealand, Guardian Trust manages or administers $3 billion of clients’ assets and provides corporate trustee services for securities with over $64 billion under supervision.

Guardian Trust has been serving generations of New Zealanders for nearly 130 years and is a market leader in trusts, estates and wealth management. As one of New Zealand’s foremost trustee companies, it specialises in estate planning and asset protection; lifecare and lifestyle management; financial advice and investment management; philanthropy; and corporate trusts.

Guardian Trust is the country’s pre-eminent provider of philanthropic services, administering 462 charitable trusts with nearly $600 million in funds under management that provided $23 million in funding for charities and good causes in the last financial year. During 2011 Guardian Trust estimates that it provided 11% of all donations from charitable trusts in New Zealand, making it the trustee to turn to for creating an enduring legacy.

Guardian Trust is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Trust Company, a leading independent Australian trustee listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

ENDS

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