The Endeavour Foundation is one of Queensland’s oldest charities, founded in 1951. It is one of the largest non-government disability service providers in Australia. They support more than 3,400 people with a disability, from 230 locations in Queensland and New South Wales. This year, the Endeavour Foundation are holding their Melbourne Cup Day Fundraising Luncheon on 4th November, and they contacted me to see if I would assist with a donation for this fundraising effort.
I’m really pleased to be supporting the Endeavour Foundation again, as I have done before (see here and here).
It is good to know that in our wide and varied community, those who face the challenges in their daily lives that living with a disability presents are able to be supported and nurtured; advocated for and given opportunities to learn and grow and have their varying needs met. I have donated a raffle prize to assist with Endeavour’s fundraising effort, and I look forward to seeing what the prize winner chooses from The Silver Forge shop!
Butterfly with Blue and Orange Wings Resting (photo credit Katherine Sevon)
The Endeavour Foundation is one of Queensland’s oldest charities, founded in 1951. It is one of the largest non-government disability service providers in Australia. They support more than 3,400 people with a disability, from 230 locations in Queensland and New South Wales.
This year, the Endeavour Foundation are holding their 63rd Anniversary Gala on 21st June, and I was contacted by them to see if I could assist with a donation for this fundraising effort.
I’m really pleased to be supporting the Endeavour Foundation again, as I did last year.
It is good to know that in our wide and varied community, those who face the challenges in their daily lives that living with a disability presents are able to be supported and nurtured; advocated for and given opportunities to learn and grow and have their varying needs met. I have donated a raffle prize to assist with Endeavour’s fundraising effort, and I look forward to seeing what the prize winner chooses from The Silver Forge shop!
The Endeavour Foundation is one of Queensland’s oldest charities, founded in 1951. It is one of the largest non-government disability service providers in Australia. They support more than 3,400 people with a disability, from 230 locations in Queensland and New South Wales.
This year, the Endeavour Foundation are holding a Melbourne Cup Luncheon on 5th November, and I was recently contacted by them to see if I could assist with a donation for this fundraising effort.
In a serendipitous twist, I had just that day been at the park with my younger son, and had made friends with a woman who was out walking with her disability support worker and a friend. My new friend and I chatted for ages about the knitting she was doing, her love of ‘The Bold and The Beautiful’, and what else she’d been up to. I could see that the support worker was a very encouraging and understanding of the two women she was caring for, and she was able to translate for us when I had a couple of moments difficulty understanding what my new friend was saying.
It is good to know that in our wide and varied community, those who face the challenges in their daily lives that living with a disability presents are able to be supported and nurtured; advocated for and given opportunities to learn and grow and have their varying needs met. I have donated a raffle prize to assist the with Endeavour’s fundraising effort, and I look forward to seeing what the prize winner chooses from The Silver Forge shop!
Passionflower Vine Curl (photo credit to Simone Carter)
Many of the world’s park rangers work in extreme conditions while protecting our endangered species and ecosystems. Low pay, lack of equipment, poor living conditions and the threat of severe violence is the daily reality for many of these frontline conservationists.
The Thin Green Line Foundation provide protection for wildlife rangers around the world. Over a thousand rangers have been killed in action in the last ten years. The Foundation provide vital equipment, training and resources to rangers in the field, predominantly in high value conservation and conflict zones. The also remember the widows and children of our fallen conservation heroes, and provide meaningful and effective social support.
Supported by such diverse people as Jane Goodall, Gotye and Tex Perkins, The Thin Green Line Foundation are partnered with the International Ranger Federation, and these are the only organisations around which are dedicated to protecting wildlife rangers.100% of donations to The Thin Green Line go to supporting projects on the ground. Donations are fully tax deductable.
The Silver Forge will be donating 10% of all sales this month to The Thin Green Line Foundation, so pop over to the shop and see if there’s anything you can help with!
EDIT: If anyone would like to own the divine photo at the top of this post, Simone the photographer has very kindly offered to donate the proceeds to The Thin Green Line. Simone’s shop, Kudos2uPhotos, is full of wonderful things – pop over and have a look!
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 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.
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.
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!)
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!
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!! 🙂
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 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.
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!
