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Generous donation helps Education Centre build

2 September 2022

L-R - Graeme Raill chairman of the Trust, presenting Sanctuary Mountain Manungatautari CEO Phil Lyons with the donation. The Trustees John Walter, Graeme Raill and the wider family of David Steele visiting the site of the Education Centre.

Sanctuary Mountain is incredibly lucky to have received a generous donation from the David Steele Trust in memory of the Trust's founder David Steele. Earlier this year, the trustees decided to wind up the Trust and wished to donate the Trust capital of $25,000 towards the Education Centre building. They felt certain that even though the Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari project has developed since David’s life, the proposed building and development of an Education and Research Centre would align with his interests and his Trusts operations.

David was born in 1945 and lived his first 20 years on the family farm at Rukuhia. He finished up farming at Taotaoroa Road, near Karapiro. During his career with the Ministry of Agriculture in various farm advisory roles and later at Waikato Polytechnic (now Wintec) as an Agricultural Tutor, David developed his skills and interests in education, especially for young people. A serious tractor accident left him with liver damage and some months after a liver transplant operation he died in 1996, aged 51.

His family said “David always had the good of his students at heart, and was concerned to help struggling persons on the first steps to further education or knowledge. It was his desire to set up a Trust fund to provide an annual scholarship. David left the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) in his will to establish the Trust, using the interest each year to fund the Award for education, extension or research. As a direct result, some 68 students received support from the Trust Fund.”

Evan Andrews who lives in Australia is the secretary of the Trust and nephew of David Steele. While in New Zealand in July, he came with family members and the other Trustees to present the donation to Sanctuary Mountain CEO Phil Lyons. While on-site, they visited the construction site for the Education Centre and then had a Guided tour of the Wetland.

A huge thank you for this generous donation that will contribute to the Education Centre build.