Creating Opportunities to Make an IMPACT in the World
Story appeared in the 2016 issue of QMS Connections Magazine.
BY LEANNE SCHULTZ, OPERATIONS & HR MANAGER
Since opening its doors in 1921, Queen Margaret’s School has operated on the belief that every child has unique gifts and talents that they bring into the world.
The fundamental reason our School exists is to help our students hone these gifts and talents to become accomplished lifelong learners who go on to make positive impacts in the world. Making a Queen Margaret’s School education accessible with financial support for exceptional young students who could not otherwise attend is an integral component to realizing our vision.
Since the days of our Founders, Miss Denny and Miss Geoghegan, the School has offered some form of financial assistance to make attending Queen Margaret’s School a possibility for children who could not otherwise attend. This was a natural extension from the exceptional generosity and commitment to service that the Founders’ consistently demonstrated (despite the fact that they themselves received no formal pay for their work). In the early days of the School, financial sup-port often took the form of delayed payment plans and caring for children over Christmas and summer holidays when their families were unable to take them back home. In addition, as Miss Denny notes in Beyond All Dreams, “There were summer holidays when we invited children whose names we obtained from the Welfare Department. They were city children who enjoyed the country.”
For students like Trudy Byers, Elisabeth Ruiter and Kira Keir, financial assistance to attend Queen Margaret’s School has been life-altering. (See their stories on the next pages.) They have all made a positive impact at Queen Margaret’s School and the world, and the School is a better place for their being here. Unfortunately, the school’s ability to offer financial aid to deserving students is limited by the availability of funds. Queen Margaret’s School does not have an established endowment (yet) and continues to depend on donations in the form of planned gifts and annual fund donations to augment its operational bursary program.
Dola Boas (Mitchell, ‘57) knows firsthand the value of attending Queen Margaret’s School. She attended the School with her cousins in the 1950s, and sent her own daughter to attend from 1977 to 1982. Dola’s loyalty to Queen Margaret’s School is inspired by her belief in the importance of what the School imparts to its students—a lesson that has not altered much with the passage of time: You must leave the world a better place than you found it. “The education that students get from Queen Margaret’s School now is second-to-none, but what must be experienced
at the School is the exposure to international friendships, the sense of belonging in a global community, and the opportunity to live the values that the School holds dear.”
Dola has lent her support in numerous ways with over 50 years of involvement at Queen Margaret’s School, and she
is very excited for the future. As a sitting Governor on the QMS Board, she knows that the continued vibrancy and vitality of the School she loves depends on making it available and accessible to a diverse group students. For that reason, she and her husband Charlie recently committed to leave a planned gift to the school. Although the gift is unrestricted, Dola is counting on some of the proceeds being directed to deserving future students, giving them the same opportunities experienced by her and her family.