In 2023 we are celebrating the 10th year of our partnership with Greyhound Australia.
It started back in 2013 with a generous yet simple offer to allow all our Yalari students to travel on Greyhound’s coaches for free. A couple of years later, they offered to take our sponsors and supporters out to Cherbourg so they could join Yalari students on the final 10kms of their 125km Commemorative Walk to Cherbourg.
From those beginnings it has just kept growing. In 2023, Greyhound continues to provide free transport to and from school for Yalari students in every corner of Australia … and so much more:
- At our Year 7 and 8 Orientation Camp, they provide coaches and drivers whenever we need to move from The Southport School to any off-campus activities around the Gold Coast – and that can be up to three full busloads at a time;
- They provide student transport to and from our biannual South-East Queensland Gatherings;
- They freight all our camping gear to and from Brisbane and Alice Springs for the Outback Camps;
- They freight all our equipment to and from Brisbane for the Yalari Dinners in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide – that’s approximately 80 items per year; and
- They promote Yalari on the back of three Greyhound coaches that regularly travel through Outback towns and communities between Adelaide and Darwin. There are also a further three dedicated Yalari branded coaches that operate in regional Queensland and the east coast of Australia.
“Behind all of the education scholarships that Yalari awards are the logistics of transporting 200+ children from remote and regional communities to major metropolitan areas at least twice a year,” says Founding Director Waverley Stanley AM. And it’s not cheap: a return flight from Bamaga to Brisbane, for instance, is almost $1000.
“Greyhound have literally provided us with an Australia-wide network that gives our students the option of free travel as they move from home to school to camp and other Yalari get-togethers.
It really highlights that there is a lot more to an education scholarship than school and boarding fees, and we really appreciate working with Greyhound’s Marketing and Communications Manager, Michael Leard who doesn’t seem to have the word ‘no’ in his vocabulary.”
For their part, Michael says Greyhound loves being part of a program that is creating positive change for First Nations people and, as a result, helping to change an entire country.
“In actual fact, it’s us who should be thanking you. We really appreciate and take great pride in the fact that the Yalari team have allowed us to be part of a solution that is not only creating generational change for young people and their families but also works towards the acknowledgement, inclusion and elevation of this country’s Traditional Owners.
We want to thank the entire Yalari team for everything you do to provide opportunity, support and positive futures for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The effort, focus and passion each one of you have is infectious.”
