Our Story

Former school Principal Sean Gordon founded SchoolAid in 1999 after being confronted by media imagery of major world disasters and tragedies, and wondering how these images might impact on young minds. As an educator, Sean was aware of how such tragedies concern and worry children, and so decided to create a platform to engage with children both witnessing and directly affected in these disasters, as well as providing a vehicle to contribute tangible assistance. 

SchoolAid was officially launched in Australia in April 2003 by the then Queensland Education Minister, Ms Anna Bligh.

Since then, Aussie kids have proved themselves more than capable of achieving extraordinary results, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild a school in Banda Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami, opening a youth centre in East Timor, and providing resources to schoolchildren following earthquakes in China. SchoolAid's schools community raised over $860,000 to help kids affected by the Victorian Bushfires of 2009, and in 2011 our 'SchoolAid Floods Relief Appeal' has already raised over $840,000 for those impacted by the January floods and cyclone Yasi. 

Since SchoolAid was founded in 1999, over $3.5million has been raised by school students across Australia and distributed to child-focused programs from Victoria to Banda Aceh, from Katherine to Cambodia.