Community focus on funding Suli Niulala Memorial Scholarship in perpetuity

On Thursday the 13th June, Trinity’s annual Giving Day will raise funds to continue the Suli Niulala Memorial Scholarship.

For last year’s Giving Day the School community set their sights high, seeking a million dollars, knowing that amount would ensure the Suli Niulala Memorial Scholarship would then be funded in perpetuity.

Getting over half way there in 24 hours was an amazing result, enabling the School to offer the inaugural Scholarship to one student; he started at Trinity in Term 1 2024.

But the Scholarship is not yet funded into perpetuity. So that’s the goal for the 2024 Giving Day: to raise the final amount of $475,000.

Creating a new scholarship fund is no easy task but it was – and remains – the perfect way to honour Mr Suli Niulala’s impact on the Trinity community.

The efforts of one year’s worth of donations are already growing to make it possible for generations to come.

This feature of the scholarship is something that the Niulala family are extremely proud of.

“Knowing you can make a difference to at least one family’s life every year … for always? That’s just something that … you don’t get those opportunities very often,” says Mrs Debbie Niulala.

Mrs Niulala also says that this kind of support – that lasts beyond just one day or one season – is something that Trinity is especially skilled at.

“The thing that is special and unique, I think, about Trinity, is just the strong desire to really help. In practical ways, but also around the scholarship,” she says. “[The support] didn’t end in that 48 hours. I can honestly tell you that our family has just been looked after by the community of Trinity in so many ways … it’s just endless.”

One year later, the Suli Niulala Memorial Scholarship is in action, with a recipient selected who joined Trinity at the beginning of 2024. Sam Niulala – the eldest Niulala son – has now graduated from Trinity, but before he left, he was able to meet the recipient and see his father’s legacy at work.

“Luke has also had an opportunity to talk to [the recipient],” Mrs Niulala says. “He had the same levels of excitement. It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring another family into the community and just wrap around the family. It’s really important to make sure we’re consistently making families that come into the community – regardless of how they’ve got here – feel so included.”

Last Giving Day, the grief of losing Suli was still raw for his family and it was difficult to know what the scholarship would look like in reality. But Mrs Niulala says she now spends less time dwelling on the past and, instead, looks to the future. She knows that this scholarship is already paving the way for brighter futures for young, Pacific Islander students who are passionate about the same things Suli was – Rugby and his Christian faith.

“He would definitely be smiling about these new recipients coming in,” she says. “He’d be smiling that [Mr James] Leckie, Director of Enrolments, has a hand in the selection process. And he would be absolutely thrilled that his boys had an opportunity to meet the first recipients.

“He’d be delighted. And I think he’d just be asking them – whether a recipient or our own boys – to continue to be mindful of the blessings that these things enable and pass those blessings on.

“I hope that in 10, 20, 30 years time, I will still be receiving word from students and recipients of this scholarship, sharing where life has taken them and how their Trinity education has shaped their life.”

Giving Day 2024 takes place from 3pm on Thursday June 13 until 3pm Friday June 14.

Donate via the School’s Charidy Fundraising webpage.

For Mrs Niulala, this scholarship fund is a way that he can continue to have that impact for years to come. She hopes that in 10, 20, 30 years time, she will still be receiving word from students and recipients of this scholarship, sharing where life has taken them and how their Trinity education has shaped their life.

Giving Day takes place from 3pm on Thursday June 13 until 3pm Friday June 14.

Donate via the School’s Charidy Fundraising webpage.

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