Sarah Stegley

Sarah was born on 16 October 1951. She was educated at the Star of the Sea Convent, Gardenvale and Sacre Coeur Convent, Glen Iris. Sarah obtained a Diploma in Agricultural Science at Massey University, (USA). From 1974 until 1976 she worked with the United Nations on a food and agricultural organisation project in Lesotho, Southern Africa.

From 1977 she has been the co-owner and operator of Howqua Dale Gourmet Retreat and Gourmet Tours of Australia. She is the winner of Mietta O'Donnell's 2001 Restaurant Award and the Jaguar Award for Excellence in Gastronomic Tourism. She is a Trustee of The Stegley Foundation since its inception in the early 1970s. Sarah is a Founding member of the Women Donors Network and a Founding member of Australian Association of the Philanthropy.

Sarah is involved in Project Mansfield, which is designed to protect and enhance the environment in Mansfield, Delatite Open Spaces Committee. She is a member of the Mansfield Performing Arts Centre, the Mansfield Mullum Wetlands and the Bentley Nursing Home Therapeutic Garden. She is a founding member of Howqua Valley Landcare Group and has served on the Alpine Advisory Committee and the Mansfield Hospital Board.

The Stegley Foundation was established as a limited life philanthropic trust in 1973, and Sarah became a trustee in 1979. For almost 30 years the Foundation has supported organisations and groups working within local communities, or with communities of interest, to challenge discriminatory policy and practice, build social infrastructure and promote social justice and equity.

Between 1997 and 2001, the Foundation's funding priorities have included enhancing local government's capacity to effectively represent and to be responsive and accountable to its constituents, supporting community advocacy, to strengthen the voices of those working for social justice and equity and strengthening Aboriginal identity and addressing issues of discrimination and dispossession. The Foundation has also played an active part in promoting progressive philanthropy.

It has done this by mentoring, and forming partnerships with new philanthropists and in hosting public forums which raise discussion and debate about the need to go beyond handouts to the poor, to supporting those people working to change the social and economic structures which disadvantage and discriminate.