The St Mary's Endowment for Girls
Making a contribution to the endowment ensures a distinguished education for young girls at St Mary’s for generations to come.
Giving a gift towards the endowment is a gesture of confidence and trust in a school that has more than a century of strong moral ethos, produces excellent all-round results, and young women who are confident and successful.
A major gift in the amount of your choice will make an important impact.
Bursaries
Raising funds for bursaries has been a major focus of the Foundation and will continue to be for many years to come.
More than 50 girls have matriculated from St Mary’s since 2004 with financial assistance from the school and the Foundation.
Currently, through the St Mary’s Foundation, there are 26 Form I to Form V bursary recipients, including our partnership bursaries from the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, the Student Sponsorship Programme and the Alexandra Education Committee.
Teacher development
Teachers have a profound influence on the youth of our country. It is vital, therefore, not only to attract the right candidates to the profession but to ensure that teachers are well educated and trained.
Supporting teacher development, as the Foundation does together with the St Mary’s Old Girls’ Association, will touch the lives of many girls for decades to come.
Community assistance fund
This fund was established to assist current St Mary’s families experiencing financial hardship and is much needed given the effects of COVID-19 on the economy of our country.
Community Partnerships
The values of St Mary’s are love, community, and integrity. The Community Partnerships department initiatives ensure that service to the community becomes the core value of a St Mary’s girl.
Collections taken during the year go to charities catering to children, the elderly and animals. Our facilities also host learners who are part of the Ikusasa Lethu Programme, our Saturday school.
Ikusasa Lethu Programme
The Ikusasa Lethu Programme has been run successfully since 1990. This Saturday school programme has provided support to around 3 000 learners from the five high schools in Alexandra and surrounding communities.
The beneficiaries receive supplementary learning in Mathematics, Science, English, Computer Skills and other core subjects.
St Mary’s organises the programme, provides the premises and facilities, recruits the teachers, arranges transport, and provides food and beverages for the pupils.
Your donation – no matter how big or small – helps the St Mary’s Foundation educate willing and determined pupils from less advantaged backgrounds, giving them access to opportunities and hope for a better future.
These pupils have their whole lives ahead of them, with the potential to change South Africa for the better – but they need your help.
Waverley Girls’ High School
St Mary’s coaches and team players offer tennis lessons at Waverley, whose players have shown great improvement over the years. A Waverley team competes in the Southern Gauteng High Schools’ Tennis League.
Senior and Junior school community service activities
Whole School
For the period of Lent, the school participates in a collection of non-perishable foods. The food collected is given to the Ikusasa Lethu learners.
Senior School
There is an ongoing muffin initiative, where girls in the Senior School bake muffins for Ikusasa Lethu learners.
Junior School
The Junior School participates in CHOC’s flip-flop day in support of the Mighty Mack and the CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation.
Pre-loved, second-hand books are given to The Teddy Bear Clinic and the Baragwanath Hospital Comforts Committee, to be distributed to the children within their organisations.
The Grade 7s also visit the Maria Kloppers Children’s home, where we donate books as well as canned and dried foods.