This month has been a roller coaster of emotions and events to say the least!
We had to cancel our Teddy Bear Party because we had to find $2200+ for public, private and accident liability insurance before the local council would allow us to fundraise. To get this amount, we have to fundraise.
We had to sack our fundraising manager due to reasons I will not expose on here and now have an absolutely fantastic new fundraising manager by the name of Nikita.
Nikita has experience in fundraising; has first hand experience with women's refuges and living in Darwin.
We have now purchased a wishing well from Orange Timber Creations which has been personally made by the owner Ray Chamberlain for us. The well will be placed in Mr Spudleys in Cowra for people to donate money to our charity.
Mr Chamberlain discounted the well by 2/3 of the price for us so thank you so much for doing this for us!
We also celebrated our first birthday and my 45th on October 4th. Nothing special but a pat on the back for running a highly successful charity for a year with a zero bank balance.
Saturday October 12th saw the final hat and bootee set of 200 get placed in the box for Careflight NT and will be sent to Northmead in NSW for Careflight representatives to pick up and take it to Darwin. Several care packs will go to Darwin circa February for the 120 Careflight crew which includes 32 nurses, 9 doctors and 12 consultant doctors.
We have already started on the Careflight NSW packs for the 200 orders for hats, bootees and NCIU smocks. All have to be in blue and yellow for small, medium, large preemies and newborn. They will also receive a care pack for all their crews as well.
In between the Careflight packs, I have boxed up two boxes out of about 6 for the women's refuge and about 8 full packs for Goulburn Hospital as well.
150 teddy bears, bunny rabbits and mixed animal toys also went to Dubbo with love to Northern NSW Ambulance (47 Outback NSW ambulance stations).
Apparently the paramedics had a 'fight' over the wombat to see who got it so I told them to keep it for a mascot if they couldn't decide who got it.
We will be sending more Australian animals next time as not everyone likes teddy bears.
Due to no funding or donations, we will have to put a hold on trauma toys for police and fire brigades for now.
Careflight NT were absolutely blown away with all that we do within our charity and the stunning outfits our volunteers make and donate. Not only has Careflight called us a "Magnificent charity" but Tanya (Deputy General Manager Northern Operations) went to show the photos of our packs to the Royal Darwin Hospital staff and asked them if they would take our full baby packs and they said yes ! The packs will also go to a remote Aboriginal clinic and to Katherine Hospital via Careflight.
We have the most incredible supporters and volunteers including several CWA groups, craft groups, businesses, organizations such as Careflight, the RFDS, May Gibbs Nutcote Cottage, Blackchrome Sportswear and Starmax Online. Many individuals, politicians etc and it just completely blows me away to think we have gained so