Category Archives: Worthy Causes

Let’s Ova-Run Cancer Auction

Pink Gerbera

‘One flower for you’ (Fine Art Photography by Andrea Caroline)

 

Let's Ova Run Cancer

Let’s Ova-Run Cancer, a fundraising organisation started by Leanne French (an ovarian cancer survivor) and some of her friends, is holding its second annual fundraising auction which starts tomorrow. The funds raised go to Ovarian Cancer Australia to help research and fight this disease.

 

 

In Australia, three women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every day. There is no early detection test for ovarian cancer and the Pap test does not detect the disease.

More than 1300 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer in Australia each year and 800 women will die from the disease. Approximately 75% of women are diagnosed at an advanced stage, where the cancer has spread and is difficult to treat successfully.

At the moment, only 43% of women with ovarian cancer will be alive five years later. But if ovarian cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, women have an 80% chance of being alive and well after five years.

Ovarian Cancer Australia

The Ovarian Cancer Australia website has lots of information about the disease, including the symptoms to watch out for.

Pink Czech Glass and Sterling Silver Earrings

I have donated two pairs of earrings to the Ova-Run fundraiser. Why not head over to the Ova-Run website and check out the many fabulous items in the auction while you’re there!  Registration is now open. All you need is a valid e-mail address and away you go. Bidding starts at 7am EST, Monday 25th February 2013 (that’s tomorrow morning!). The system is a lot like Ebay and is easy to navigate.

Orange Czech Glass and Sterling Silver Earrings

This cause is close to my heart, as some years ago I had my own ovarian cancer scare when one of my ovaries was removed in an emergency procedure due to a torsioned cyst. It turned out to be a fortuitous operation, as there was a pre-cancerous tumour inside that cyst. Five years of monitoring blood tests and ultrasounds saw me still in the clear, for which I am extremely grateful. You can understand why I am glad to have the opportunity to help fund research to help people who have been less fortunate than I was. I plan to donate 10% of all sales from my shop during March  – let’s get behind this worthy cause together!!

From Made It With Love

A fundraising event for the family of Tammy Boorer, one of our Made It Online Handmade Market community members, is being held from 8pm on Wednesday 13th February 2013. Tammy and her unborn baby were killed in a car accident last month, leaving behind her husband (who is still in hospital in a critical condition) and her two young children.

To help Tammy’s family, MadeIt sellers will be listing fundraising items in their MadeIt shops, and each individual MadeIt seller will then donate the proceeds from the sale of their handmade items directly to the Boorer family support fund which is held by the family’s church, the Ipswich Presbyterian. The MadeIt admin team will be donating their sales commission from each piece also.

You can help this young family by shopping for fundraising items – just go to the MadeIt website and search for “madeit with love”. If you would like to make a direct deposit to help the Boorer family instead or as well, you can also donate using the following bank details:

Account Name: Central Presbyterian Church Ipswich
BSB: 034189
Account: 196363
Ref: Boorer Family

I have listed this flower pendant which I made with love for Tammy and her family.

Sterling Silver Flower Pendant - From Made It With Love

Please take a moment over the next few days to purchase a beautiful handmade item to do what we can to help the Boorer family.  If you have any questions, or need any further information, please feel free to contact me.

 

For Tammy and her baby – who have returned to the light.

Flipside Circus!

Unicycle

The truth is I came across Flipside because I was looking for somewhere to learn to ride my unicycle. (Yes, I have one, and I had tried to ride it on and off, and hadn’t quite gotten it together.) I was looking online (as you do) and found this fabulous circus space, just around the corner from where I live! 

Flipside Circus Logo

Flipside is a not-for-profit, community based organisation who provide an extensive circus program with an exciting range of circus activities geared around empowering children.

Flipside Acrobats

Its primary goal is providing a fun, non-competitive and safe environment for young people to build their strength, fitness, coordination and self-confidence through learning basic circus skills. 

Flipside Ropes

I enrolled my son straight away. We love our weekly fun at  Flipside, all our lovely trainers are so kind, gentle and patient with the children, and it’s marvellous to watch the little ones blossoming and gaining confidence each week.  Even the littlies get to go on the trapeze, the tissu, the tightrope and the tramp – just like the bigger kids.  There are heaps of different activites each time, and we both get so much out of it (if you’re taking your little one, grown-ups can join in too!)

Flipside Wheel

On 9 December, Flipside Circus held their annual Flipside Fiesta – a fun fundraising day for all their circus families. I was very happy to support Flipside with a Silver Forge raffle prize donation – the winner of the prize received a custom handcrafted ring, made by yours truly.  More on that later!

Flipside Green Legs

The unicycle?  Well, I still haven’t managed to master that just yet, but Flipside do run classes for adults, so if I can schedule my family around it, that might be my next adventure!! 🙂

Books, glorious books! And a way to make a difference.

Reading – it’s probably my number one favourite thing to do.  Ever.  Who doesn’t love to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and a good book? I read morning, noon and night. It’s a miracle that I get anything else done in a day, really!!! Anyway, at the moment, I’m devouring reading “Twenty Chickens for a Saddle” by Robyn Scott.  It is a memoir of Robyn’s life as a child, growing up in Botswana, Africa.

As well as many entertaining and amusing anecdotes about her family (swimming in crocodile infested rivers? Being home-schooled in a most unorthodox fashion by their mother? Running an egg selling business, using rescued ‘past their use by date’ battery hens, to fund a new saddle?), Robyn manages to impart – in a way that is completely engaging and without overloading you -a great deal of information about a number of potentially politically touchy subjects, including the AIDS epidemic, and the scary and dangerous beliefs that some of the African people have about HIV.

I haven’t even finished the book yet (plans for that later today!) but I just had to let you know that I was excited enough to tweet about it yesterday, and was surprised and thrilled to receive a tweet from Robyn in reply, letting me know about a great organisation she helped found, Mothers For All.

Mothers For All

Mothers For All are non-profit, supporting women in Botswana and South Africa who care for children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. Mothers For All has this to say:

“Every mother hopes, should something happen to her, someone will be there to both care for and love her children as she did. But in sub-Saharan Africa millions of mothers have little or no means of ensuring this. Of the 15 million children under 18 years who have been orphaned as a result of AIDS worldwide, 12 million live in sub-Saharan Africa.” (figures from 2009).

I think this probably resonates with all of us – I can’t think of anything more awful than not being there for my children, and not knowing that they would be safe and cared for if I were to die. So, what started as a gentle book read has morphed into a worthy cause to support.  Like me, perhaps you could take a few minutes to read the website, and perhaps make a donation or purchase one of the lovely bead pieces, handmade by the mothers of the project.

Mothers For All Necklace Green

Perhaps you could become an activist for Mothers For All, or simply use whatever social media you’re comfortable with to promote this very worthy cause!