On the joy of giving into your nineties

I grew up on a sheep farm at Bethungra in New South Wales. My parents were givers, particularly my mum who was involved in the Red Cross and the Country Women’s Association. So, although I had that training in childhood, it wasn’t until the horrible day my husband died that giving, in a charitable way, became something that I really needed to do.

When my husband died, I decided that because I had no surviving siblings or children, I had to do something useful with our money during my lifetime. I realised that I wanted to give in a way that would help young women and that became my main aim in life. I grew up in the country, where there were less opportunities. I only went to the intermediate certificate and at 16 years old, I got a job. I had all these glamorous ideas that I wanted to be a ballerina or a dancer, but I didn’t realise that I really had no chance of that. In 2005, when I started giving, I realised that I was in a position to help other girls access the opportunities that I missed out on. So, the education of country and indigenous girls and women, and providing scholarships, became my focus, and I've stuck to that.

I’ve never really had a long-term plan with my giving; everything has been a case of serendipity. A few days after my husband’s death, I happened to hear one of the previous Premiers of Queensland talk about how he’d been to America and inspired by how they did things over there, decided to set up Queensland Gives.

So, I started by giving Queensland Gives a small amount, just to get started, and then moved into giving scholarships. Since 2005, I’ve given between over 300 scholarships, and I’ve allied with universities as I wouldn’t know how to go about finding them myself. I have scholarships set up with the University of Technology Sydney, Queensland University of Technology and University of Sunshine Coast, which is my local university. The amount I gave to QUT has been managed very well, so instead of giving six scholarships, as of this year, I have 16 scholarships to give out, which is going to be really exciting.

I also have the Ruth Cowled Memorial Scholarship and Ruth Cowled Design Fund, with NIDA, in memory of my sister who was given a scholarship to do stage design in England in the fifties but unfortunately died quite soon after she came back.

And I have scholarships at NeurA, a medical research institute at the University of New South Wales that’s working to improve the lives of people living with brain disorders. In fact, last night I appointed my latest scholarship to a woman who is doing her post doctorate there.

I think the joy of giving is the most important part. I feel quite embarrassed by people saying how wonderful it is, when I’m getting so much out of it. It’s actually not wonderful, it’s just that I have the capacity to do it, and that gives me such pleasure. I’m going on 96 years old and I’m full of joy and happiness, because of all these lovely young women who I've supported over the years. Each year, QUT have a ceremony where I give out the scholarship to the girls and I just love the way they respond, and they are all so young and so lovely. It just gives me a great deal of joy and it's like another career really.

More recently, I’ve started giving to Opportunity International because I feel like I should do something for people overseas as well. I’ve set up little banks of about $10,000 and that money keeps circulating around West Timor. But the other day I had coffee with Bryan Barklay from Opportunity International in Brisbane, and he told me about these mobile health clinics in Bangladesh that go out to the remote areas where many poor people live. The whole idea grabbed me and before midnight that same day, I managed to give them $38,500. Unfortunately, it upset my sleep that night because I got so excited about it! I had to laugh because I realised that my giving would go up until 2049 and I’ll be 120 years old, so I won’t be able to roll it over unfortunately!

But my biggest ambition is for everyone to know that giving is a tonic; it does you so much good and it also does a lot of good for the whole country as well. You don't have to give a lot of money. You can get a lot of joy out of giving a hundred dollars, but it's just staggering what can happen when you put it out there.