In 2007, we swapped our pet rock Oscar for a $41,000 car for a Brisbane charity called Youngcare. It took 16 weeks but was a lot of fun. You can find the story of Oscar on this site. But in March 2009, we set off on our latest project. That was to help another charity – Paradise Kids. This charity is amazing and helps kids from all sorts of places deal with grief and loss. It also helps their families. And our project is now complete. Read on ...
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Every kid has a story to tell. And we have just spent the past six months helping kids, mums and dads throughout Australia to write their short stories … straight from the heart.
We have compiled six amazing stories, plus a very emotional article from a counsellor at Paradise Kids. Her name is Mireille Allan and she has been such an amazing part of helping us complete this project. Thanks Mireille!!!
We also thank Christabel, Stevie, Liz, Theresa, Amanda and Caitlin for opening their hearts to make this project happen. And we thank all the media people who have helped us get our book project out in 'public land' - Ashley from Channel 9, Renae from Gold Coast Bulletin, all the writers at Gold Coast Sun, Charmaine and James at ABC Radio - and many others.
Finally, we thank Jess and Josh and the gang at IONLine for keeping our website looking swish!!
And we thank Robert and Karla at Fast Proof Press in Nerang for agreeing to print the book for free. Karla is the design guru at Fast Proof Press who has made our book look WOW!! Go Karla!! We first approached Robert at Fast Proof Press in September this year and he straight away agreed to design and print the book for free. That day, we knew that it wasn't just us who had the charity bug. Robert and Fast Proof Press are ADDICTED to charities!!! Read below for our latest news. Or ring our Dad (Warwick) on 0419 431599 if you want to talk to us about the project.
UPDATE ... UPDATE JANUARY 18
The books have been delivered to Paradise Kids. Check out the cover (right) or contact Paradise Kids to see how you can get a copy.
Our Other Project - Operation ShoeBox is also FINISHED
We asked anyone to please send a small present to our PO Box. (PO Box 701, Broadbeach, QLD 4218).
All we asked was that they buy a small gift (that fitted into a shoebox), put a card in with the gift, and post it unwrapped to our PO Box. Our ShoeBox hotlink had several age brackets to choose from. We also got some amazing help from Julie Parratt and her young girls. Julie's girl Sidney goes to Robina Primary School. They organised a huge empty box to be left at Robina Primary School ... and lots of Robina students left presents. So, on December 11, we collected them -- 61 presents!!
That meant we had 86 presents in total! The kind families sending presents can now go to the ShoeBox hotlink and see their name there (under the age group they chose) as we have kept that as a register. Some names may be missing because there were no cards - but you will know who you are!. So thanks Julie, thanks Robina Primary and thanks to everyone who donated. We will drop the presents to Paradise Kids next week.
This completes our 2009 charity projects. Byyyeee.. and thanks again!!
Our final present count is: 86
Bye
Hannah and Luke
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