Affinity Education Group has increased its commitment to The Smith Family

Affinity Education Group has increased its commitment to The Smith Family’s Learning for Life program, boosting the number of individual child scholarships to 215 on behalf of its network of services across the country. 

“One of Affinity’s values is ‘being completely connected’,” CEO Tim Hickey shared. “Our promise – potential, realised – aligns strongly with The Smith Family’s vision for a world where every child has the opportunity to change their future.” 

The company’s decision to broaden its corporate social responsibility strategy was led, in part, by employee feedback received in 2022. Choosing The Smith Family, Mr Hickey continued, was a natural progression of Affinity’s Lifelong Learning Curriculum, which has the goal of growing and instilling a lifelong love of learning in every child. 

Milestones Early Learning Werribee is one of the services sponsoring a child under Learning for Life, something which delights Centre Manager Erin Bonehill. 

“Our educators absolutely love children, so this sponsorship provided on our behalf by Affinity was really meaningful for us as employees, because it demonstrates another way we can give back to Australian families,” she said. 

Services who are sponsoring a child in the Learning for Life program are also getting involved in communication with the children in the program. At Papilio Early Learning Blackburn, children in the four-year-old Kindergarten program have been creating artwork to send to their sponsored child. 

“We explained to our children that we were supporting a new friend – in ‘big school’ (primary school) whose family found it hard to buy them their school books and uniforms, and asked them to draw a picture of what they thought their new friend might look like,” Centre Manager Emily Ellis shared.

“These drawings were posted through the system The Smith Family has set up so we can communicate and let that child know that we’re thinking about them and care about them,” she said. 

Smith Family CEO Doug Taylor welcomed the partnership, saying it will allow the charity to offer its Learning for Life to hundreds more disadvantaged children, empowering them to build their skills and unlock their true potential.

Affinity has made an initial three-year commitment to The Smith Family’s Learning for Life program, with Mr Hickey saying the company will progressively add additional sponsorships as its community of centres grows nationally.