Sarah-Jane and the scholarship you’ve never heard of

Sarah-Jane Riley is the 50th recipient of an unusual scholarship with an interesting history.

The Avondale Ministerial Training Scholarship began with the largest ever donation to Avondale College of Higher Education. The donation came from the late Seventh-day Adventist businessman Graham Allen, who owned and operated the Pluim Group of construction-related companies, the largest privately-owned commercial building operation on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

A generous and practical man committed to the mission of the church, Graham decided in 2001 to begin encouraging and rewarding ministerial students such as Sarah-Jane who were completing the last half of their study. His focus: students who demonstrated their call to ministry and suitability for employment through service to a local church and outreach to a local community.

The board managing the scholarship is made up of retired senior denominational leaders. They have awarded $250,000 in scholarships and grants since the scholarship’s inception in 2001. They have also funded student-led evangelistic series in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Malaysia, which led to 504 baptisms. And they have plans to provide media evangelism training in rural areas where there is currently no Adventist presence.

The board received $55,000 in donations in 2014. If it could increase the fund by $500,000, the benefits to ministerial students would be enormous.

The best thing about the scholarship? The graduates who are actively ministering across the South Pacific. Every day they demonstrate with their lives the power of good people, a good cause and a good idea. They prove there is no better investment than in people, dedicated to following God’s will.

Why not become an active part of this remarkable story?

Avondale Ministerial Training Scholarship