Suzanne and Brian Morgan moved to Ashtonfield in 1984 and haven't looked back.

The location was too perfect to pass up; it's central to lots of schools, not far from the wineries and equally not far from the beach.

Suzanne had a long career as principal of St Joseph's Primary School, East Maitland, and Our Lady of Lourdes, Tarro.

In the news:

A primary school teacher, Brian's career is in Catholic education too and he is still doing some casual work; even though he retired seven years ago.

His schedule is about to get a whole lot busier though, as he was recently inducted as East Maitland Rotary Club's new president.

The pair founded local not-for-profit SIM's Cambodia Inc (schools, immersion, mission) in 2010, which supports impoverished villages in remote and jungle regions, with the goal of breaking the cycle of poverty.

The Morgans have made it their mission to empower people, and have found they can do a lot more good focusing on specific villages rather than sending a little bit of money everywhere.

"Our work has mainly been focused on empowering the locals to take charge, not just us going over there with gifts but actually empowering the locals to take charge of the projects," Brian said.

"We've still been able, during COVID to continue with our programs and our buildings and our projects, because we've got such a strong team on the ground we can send the money over, and they get the work done and send back all the photos and reports on how our works going."

Over the past couple of years SIM's has funded building projects using local supplies, they have paid teachers wages, they have put a young woman through university and have helped another retrain as a hair dresser.

"We go to three main villages and try to go as deep as we can and try to make a difference in their lives," Suzanne said.

The Morgans officially joined East Maitland Rotary in 2019, after years working alongside the club fundraising for Cambodia.

"I said to Sue, we might as well join because these people are on the same wavelength that we are; service above self and providing service to the community, so we joined," Brian said.

"And we haven't looked back because it's really opened a whole new world to us and more support."

In their spare time, the couple can usually be found hiking at Glenrock or Walka Water Works (before it was closed), and they have previously hiked the Camino in Spain.

They are very proud of their two children and three grandchildren, who are not too far away.

Do you know you can subscribe to get full access to all Maitland Mercury stories? Subscribing supports us in our local news coverage. To subscribe, click here.