Dr Leon Shapero has worked in Cranbourne and given back to the Casey community for the past 30 years – and he isn’t stopping anytime soon. Last year he set up the ACE Foundation, a volunteer organisation which through offering encouragement awards and funding to schools helps to support students in the municipality. Leon sat down with LACHLAN MOORHEAD to share his story and speak about why the City of Casey, and its residents, mean so much to him.
“That was one of a number that can really bring a tear to your eye when you read them.”
DR LEON Shapero has always identified with people who need a hand.
Growing up in East London before moving to Victoria as a child with his family, the Cranbourne GP obstetrician remembers changing schools at least five times and the uncertainty it brought.
Hence it’s understandable why the Managing Director of the Thompson Road Clinic, a facility Leon has expanded since 1993, has now also turned his attention to building his own charity.
The ACE Foundation was set up and incorporated in August last year, and aims to encourage, support and help educate local teenage students.
“Many children in our Casey community face substantial hurdles,” Leon said.
“Language, cultural, financial, family fracture and social challenges have the effect of limiting potential.
“That is the area we wish to impact.”
And while still in its early stages, a student teacher and tutor supervised study centre at the clinic has been set up by Dr Shapero and the Ace Foundation board.
The centre rewards students with funding, and in particular encouragement awards for children who, their teachers identify, would benefit greatly from them.
“I just wanted to do more, and do so utilising the experience I’ve gained on various government committees and boards,” Dr Shapero said.
“Using the experience gained, I wanted to put something together that could impact on a broader scale.
“And to do that, you need well-known, respected, influential, and like-minded people. Put them together and the team is greater than the sum of its parts.
“The ACE board are very active, hard-working, like-minded and resourceful people who know this community well.”
With Leon sitting as chair, others on the ACE board include Casey Councillor Amanda Stapledon, Cranbourne Secondary College principal Ken Robinson, Courtenay Gardens Primary School principal Loretta Hamilton, Federal Parliament political staffer Janet Halsall and Highview Accounting owner Silvio Marinelli.
The ACE Foundation focuses on helping students in Years 6 to 10.
“I personally thought they were the best years to focus on as they may provide the child with meaningful encouragement,” Dr Shapero said.
“It’s when kids start becoming themselves,” he added.
Reflecting on his own upbringing, the father of four said his parents often struggled financially and the whole family learned to persevere and forged a fulfilling new life in their new country.
Leon, a fervent Collingwood supporter, grew up in Rosanna in the state’s north-east where the town was all but painted in black and white.
A neighbour took Leon and his father to their first Collingwood match in 1964 and he’s been to every Grand Final since ’66.
“My parents and family never had any financial status in England or Australia, so we grew up and financially it was always a struggle. It’s not that way for my family now, but it was back then,” Leon said.
“So I identified with people who were going through that themselves. And in this area (Casey), they certainly are.
“It’s struggle street for many people in many different ways and it’s not only financial strains that they have. That’s what I grew up with but people also have other serious challenges. They may have family fracture issues, illness, cultural and language hurdles.
“But in some ways these children do have a life advantage. That is, they do get to mix with and grow up with as well as understand people from many different and varied backgrounds.
“Doing so as a child provides a depth to one’s personal growth.
“Children learn not to generalise about others and this, I believe, is a real life asset.”
Leon said Cranbourne in 1986, when he started practising medicine there, was a newly developing area which reminded him of the suburbs he grew up in north of the city.
“The older farming community and inner town folk were still there but the growth in the area was in the mortgage belt, the first home owners. The area has become much more multicultural and cosmopolitan in the past 10 to 15 years,” Leon said of Cranbourne.
“People arrive in Casey from Africa, Sudan particularly, from Afghanistan, India and Sri Lanka, China and south-east Asia.”
The ACE Foundation is also assisting Cranbourne Secondary College principal Ken Robinson in running a catch-up education program at the school for young pregnant girls and mothers of young children.
Dr Shapero said he was very passionate about supporting this initiative, helping encourage these young women to return to their studies to ensure they don’t “miss out on the world.”
“I went and spoke to the group last week, we’re now going to provide material support for them,” Dr Shapero said.
“We will provide resources they use day to day, but also think about how we can best provide further incentive and encouragement.“We may be able to send them to educational facilities as a group, just keep them involved and reinforce that what they are attempting to do in difficult circumstances is very worthy of encouragement.”
When asked what he finds most rewarding about giving back to the youth of Casey through the ACE Foundation, Leon said it was the “genuine” feedback from the students that re-iterated to him why he was doing what he’s doing.
While telling his story Leon rifled through his office drawer until he found one particular letter he cherished.
The printed email speaks of a local high school student in Casey, originally from Afghanistan, who was so overwhelmed to receive an ACE Foundation encouragement award that he checked with the teacher several times to make sure they had the right child.
“It resonates deep down, something like that,” Leon said.
“That was one of a number that can really bring a tear to your eye when you read them.”
