When Leesa Ffrench’s brother in-law was battling cancer, she witnessed firsthand the ripple effect of the disease, which impacts many more lives beyond the patient.   

Affected by the experience, the 44-year-old Canberra woman decided she wanted to make a difference, so she began volunteering for Rise Above – a charity that financially assists cancer patients in the Capital Region.

Rise Above assists with food, fuel vouchers, electricity bills, medication, supplements, fertility, counselling … whatever the family needs, they’re there to help.

Leesa’s passion for volunteering was recognised at the recent Volunteering ACT Awards, winning the Canberra’s Choice Award as voted by the Canberra community.

“Very, very humbled”, her acknowledgement was well deserved as she raised over $400,000 for local patients and their families in the past year.

“It was amazing to receive the award, get the recognition and get the Rise Above name out there as well, which is what it’s all about,” Leesa told CW.

You can find Leesa selling raffle tickets, shaking buckets, and cooking barbecues to raise much-needed funds. During the Christmas season, she helps host a lunch and pulls together hampers for families. 

“They say, even just getting that ham allows them to put a nice Christmas lunch on, which you know, let’s face it, hams are expensive,” she says. “And that’s all because of the community fundraising and people being so generous.”

Per patient, the charity needs between $600,000 to $700,000 to be able to assist them and their family each year.

“My sister had to give up work to be able to care for him, so then there’s no income coming in for a family. So, when we hand out a voucher for fuel or food, that puts food on their table,” Leesa explains.

“Christmas time, we give hampers that’s got your ham and all the treats for Christmas, and we do a toy drive for the children so the children don’t miss out because the family’s got no income coming in.

“We’ve got one guy on our board and his wife unfortunately was diagnosed and passed very quickly. But again, he had to give up work. He had no income … they had three small children.

“The whole family suffers – the children, the husbands, the wives, as well as well as their ongoing families as well. You’ve got to care for that person. You need to be there for that person.”

Rise Above are always looking for more volunteers, Leesa says, and even just a couple of hours a week can make a difference.

“The more volunteers we have, the more events we can attend to raise money. On the weekend, we needed maybe about 15 people to do all our shifts at the markets, which obviously we didn’t have enough that were available that day, especially leading up to Christmas. So a lot of people do doubles and triple shifts,” says Leesa.

“For instance, on the weekend we were at the Handmade Markets, so I was there for a three-hour stint. Just knowing that every coin that went in that bucket you’re helping someone, and at the end of the day, I could have been sitting at home doing nothing, whereas you’re out there helping someone less fortunate than yourself.

“It’s just a good feeling knowing that you’ve done something that day that’s productive and helpful.”

Rise Above have seen patient numbers increase by 24 per cent over the last six months, with the financial support required increasing accordingly. They are registering on average 25 new patients per month and have around 300 families requiring their help.

If you’re not able to donate financially, Leesa says there’s plenty of ways to get involved with the charity.

“Just putting our name out there, sharing our posts on social media pages. Because the names out there, people are getting more involved and the more people we can get involved, the more money we can raise,” Leesa says.

“Our money doesn’t go to research; our money goes to people. So, in that respect, it’s good because you might donate to another company, another sort of community, and 50 per cent of it might go to research and 50 per cent might go to the actual person, whereas ours all goes to the actual person.”

Leesa smiled as she revealed the satisfaction she feels while spending her time volunteering is a “great feeling”.

If you have a couple of hours to give, she says, “come on board, Rise Above would love to have you”.

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