Celebration of Dale Carnegie 2024 Scholarship Winners from Katikati College

On Thursday, 4 July, 22 students from schools across the Western Bay of Plenty received their graduation certificates for completing the 2024 Acorn Foundation Dale Carnegie Youth Programme. Josh McGinty and Matija Ford were selected to attend from Katikati College. The estate of the late Mary and Roy McGowan

has funded these scholarships for the last fifteen years.

Acorn Foundation CEO Lori Luke said “Acorn is so pleased to once again support the Acorn Foundation Dale Carnegie Youth Programme through the generosity of Roy and Mary McGowan. Through 2024, dozens of Katikati College students have been provided a scholarship to attend a youth version of a course that has

taught skills to improve the personal and professional lives of millions of people around the world.”

This three-day course teaches the Dale Carnegie five drivers of success: building greater self-confidence; strengthening people skills; enhancing communication skills; developing leadership skills; and reducing stress and worry. The Acorn Foundation has long partnered with Dale Carnegie BOP Waikato and Priority One’s InStep programme to offer this youth-focused course that helps young people improve their self-confidence and personal communication techniques.

The graduation ceremony featured a short speech from each student about what they had learned, and their experiences – with a particular highlight for many being the ability to learn new skills that will help them in all phases of their life.

Josh McGinty from Katikati College said about his experiences of the course that, “It was great to be recognised for my leadership and the things that I've been accomplishing at school, and to learn skills that I can use to help drive me forward immediately as a school leader and as a coach.”

Congratulations to Josh and Matija!

About the Acorn Foundation:

The Acorn Foundation, the Western Bay of Plenty’s local community foundation, enables generous people to make a bigger impact in their communities, by investing the funds and distributing the returns to causes that matter – forever.

Since 2003, the Acorn Foundation has distributed over $16.5M to the Western Bay of Plenty community and beyond, supporting the work of more than 300 local charities.

Last year, the Acorn Foundation gave away over $3.3M to 226 local and national charitable organisations and scholarship and award winners. Scholarships and awards surpassed $700,000 in total and include the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, given annually at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Find out more about the Acorn Foundation at: www.acornfoundation.org.nz.

See our separate article for more information on the Katikati College Acorn Fund.