Claire and a few very good friends of mine are participating in Base to Base a fundraiser Claire has co-organised with her work team.
I would love to support my friends with this fundraiser and give others an opportunity to donate but to also receive something in return, while hopefully raising awareness.
Five Dollars from all Summer Socks + Facial Massage tool & E-Guide will go directly towards their teams fundraiser.
Why did you see a need to fundraise?
I work for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter in events so it is my job to manage fundraising events. Like many charities (and individuals and businesses) Covid has impacted our organisation’s “normal” day to day business. Last year we had to cancel many of our face to face fundraising activities however, towards the end of last year and at the start of this year, things were improving, we were able hold some of our normal events and it was beginning to look like we would be able to continue this way throughout 2021 and get back on track. Along came delta and there went that plan, many of our major fundraising events were again cancelled, but we still needed to raise money for the Service. Base to Base was created to fill the void of the face to face activities that we couldn’t produce.
We wanted to create an event that would be able to go ahead regardless of the Covid situation in different LGA’s and so a virtual fitness challenge was obvious as everyone was still allowed to exercise. We wanted anyone with any level of fitness ability to be able to participate and also wanted to promote social connection as NSW was in lockdown. This is why we choose to produce an event that has various distance lengths, not limited to the type of activity e.g not just cycling or just running and the ability to create a team with no limit so friends, families, workplaces, sporting teams could work towards a common goal and achieve something together. It was also important to us to keep the event linked to our cause, so the challenge is centred around the distances between our Helicopter Bases across Northern NSW, Tamworth, Lismore and two in Newcastle.
I wasn’t the sole organiser, is was a collaborative effort from our events team.
Where do all the funds actually go?
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service is a registered Australian charity. The funds raised from the Base to Base Challenge go towards keeping the Rescue Helicopters flying. If you don’t know much about the WRHS as an organisation it provides aeromedical and service and rescue services to the communities of Northern NSW. Based out of the three locations of Newcastle, Tamworth and Lismore it operates 24/7. The types of missions it completes are:
Primary: attending the scene of an accident or “pre-hospital” emergency e.g. motor vehicle accident, farming accident, industrial etc. and providing medical care on the scene and in the air while transferring the patient to hospital
Secondary/inter- hospital: transferring patients from rural or regional hospitals to major hospitals for specialist care e.g neonatal, spinal, neurosurgical, trauma care
Search and rescue: land and water based search and rescue operations e.g. winching people from bushland/water, searching for missing people or vessels, distress beacons etc
In terms of funding - the Service operates under a contract with NSW Health and NSW Ambulance. Through this contract the NSW Government is the major funding partner of the Service. It also receives funding from major sponsors but does rely on community funding to support its operations each year, with the goal to raise about $12 million annually through fundraising. It’s to make sure that the patients and their families don’t have to worry about the stress of trying to cover the costs of the flight while dealing the stress of having needed it in the first place.
More info on our website - https://rescuehelicopter.com.au/
More info about the event - https://events.rescuehelicopter.com.au/event/base-to-base/home
If you would like to donate directly:
$5 from every Facial Massage Tool + E-Guide and Summer Sock will be donated from Today 13th - October 21 > 16th - October 21.