From 10 to 100: Making a difference through generosity

Meet Faith and Gerald – our youngest and one of our oldest donors. Despite the 90 years separating them, they share a commitment to positively changing the world.

Goodwill comes in all shapes, sizes – and ages. This year, UNSW acknowledged the generosity of two remarkable donors at opposite ends of the age spectrum.

When Sydney schoolgirl Faith turned 10, she decided to donate her $200 birthday money to UNSW’s National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health – making her the youngest-ever donor to UNSW Medicine & Health. The Centre began in 2023, with a mission to ensure people with intellectual disability receive better healthcare. Faith was inspired to give after hearing stories of the Centre’s incredible work and the people it helped from her mother, who worked with the Centre on its first national conference.

“I really like helping people,” Faith says. “I think it’s important that everyone is treated the same.”

The birthday money came from Faith’s aunt. “Every year, her aunty gives her the option to donate, enjoy an experience or spend it, and every year without hesitation [Faith] donates it,” says her mother, Ashley.

Faith and her family visited UNSW recently and were welcomed by Clancy the Lion, UNSW’s mascot, and Professor Julian Trollor, the director of the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health. “It was incredible to meet someone so young already committed to making the world a better place,” he said.

Ashley believes it’s crucial to teach her children, including Faith’s 12-year-old sister, about empathy and responsibility. “This is the age to help them understand important issues and how small actions can have a big impact,” she says.  

A century of vision

Across the globe, another UNSW donor – Gerald Westheimer, an emeritus professor of optometry and professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley – celebrated his 100^th birthday this year. To mark the occasion, the University sent him a UNSW hoodie, which he proudly wore to snap a selfie. 

Gerald is a UNSW alumnus and a leading figure in vision science who has made groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of human vision.  

As a 14-year-old, Gerald fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to Australia with his family in 1938. He completed high school by self-study and shortly afterwards enrolled in a professional optometry course at Sydney Technical College (the forerunner to UNSW), becoming a qualified optometrist at the age of 19. While working as an optometrist, he completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney, and later moved to the US to pursue graduate studies. 

Gerald now gives back to UNSW through his support of the Gerald Westheimer Lectureship. Every two years, an eminent international researcher is invited to spend time at the University to conduct workshops with students and early-career researchers and give a public lecture. This year’s Westheimer lecturer was Nobel laureate Professor Jennifer Doudna, an American biochemist who pioneered work in gene editing.  

Faith’s and Gerald’s stories highlight the diversity of our donor community and serve as a reminder of the power of giving, at any age.