Event Recap · Student Prizegiving · 2 May 2026

When Every Young Australian Gets a Fair Start: Inside Our 2026 Annual Prize Giving

More than seventy people do not walk into a room like this by accident.

They come because someone they love is about to be recognised, because they remember what it felt like when they once were, or because they have spent years quietly making moments like this one possible. Freemasons and foundation representatives, families and former students, donors who had never met the people they had helped fund. All of them together, all of them there for the same reason.

Before the first award was called, one of our students sitting at the front of the Innovation Hub at Western Sydney University played guitar. Bigger than a performance, more like a gift: the kind of thing that settles a room and makes it feel like somewhere worth being. That feeling carried through the whole morning.

A community that shows up

There is something you notice when you step into an A Start in Life celebration. It isn't the venue or the program. It's the people. Families arrive early. Parents and carers straighten collars and check their phones for photos they've already taken. There is laughter, and a quiet nervousness that belongs only to people who love someone on the receiving end of something good. As the rest of our community shows up, it is a reminder that they are not a passive audience. They are the community that makes alot of this possible. Seeing them together in one room is a reminder of why the work matters.

41 reasons to celebrate

On the day, we recognised 21 award recipients across our main prize categories, alongside 20 graduates from our Careers and Skills program. 41 young people, each with a story that brought them to that room. One mother, watching her daughter receive her award, said she was proud of everything her daughter had taken on lately. The day before, her daughter competed in a swimming competition and won bronze. She was proud of all of it, she said. Every single bit. In many ways, that was what this morning looked like, repeated 41 times over. "Be proud of what you've accomplished" Each year we ask the current student to speak. It is always one of the moments people remember most. This year, a young man stood in front of the room and spoke about what it feels like to reach this point. He talked about the things he was proud of, and the challenges that made those things harder to reach. Then he turned to everyone in the room, students and guests alike, and said something that landed quietly and stayed. He said that everyone there should be proud. That simply getting to where they are, whatever path they took to arrive, is worth acknowledging. There was no performance in it. It was honest, and the room knew it.

More than money

The morning's most powerful moment came from someone who already knows what the road ahead looks like. An alumna of A Start in Life stood and told her story. “The road had not been easy" she said. There were years when she wasn't sure how things would turn out. But she made it through, she graduated, and she wanted to say publicly that she would not be where she is today, without the support of A Start in Life.

What she said next is worth holding onto.

It wasn't just financial support, she explained. It was the check-ins, the sense that someone was paying attention, that someone was in her corner and genuinely invested in seeing her succeed. That backing, she said, meant more than she could describe. For students facing financial barriers to education across NSW and ACT, that kind of sustained personal support can be the difference between getting through and falling through the cracks. It is what this organisation has been built around for more than a century.

What we're here for

Our CEO Kathleen Donohoe spoke about what drives this organisation and the people in it. She spoke about pride: in the work, in the students, in the community that continues to show up year after year. And she returned, as she always does, to the purpose behind it all. "Everything we do is for the children," Kathleen said, "to give them the best start in life that is possible." It has been that way since 1923. It is still that way now.

The quiet after the music

By the time the awards were received and the soft jazz started up, something had shifted in the room. The nervous energy had given way to something looser and warmer. Families gathered for photographs. Students laughed with each other. Supporters stopped to speak with the students they had helped fund without ever having met before. This is what our work looks like when it reaches its people. Not a statistic or a report, but a room full of exceptional people who have given something and received something back. If you have ever wondered whether your support makes a real difference to students facing barriers in Australia, this is what it looks like. It sounds like a young man telling his peers to be proud, it sounds like a woman who made it through saying: I couldn't have done this without you. We are grateful to every student, every family, every donor, and every supporter who made this morning possible.