The Canberra Day Appeal โHands Up 4 CBRโ Giving Day has raised $640,000 for local charities and community organisations, surpassing its $500,000 goal on the first day.
Launched by Hands Across Canberra (HAC), the second year of the region’s largest charitable fundraising appeal well surpassed the $130,000 raised in 2020, helping over 60 local charities and community organisations. HAC solely works with Canberra charities and community organisations, ensuring that the money they receive goes directly towards local people in need.
Peter Gordon, CEO of Hands Across Canberra, said that he has been humbled by the communityโs response since announcing the Canberra Day Appeal.
โIn years to come,the Canberra Day Appeal will be an institution, but institutions have to start somewhere. We have had a very modest start to the Canberra Day Appeal concept last year but this year weโve really proven that it can work,โ he said.
โThis year we have 60 charities involved and next year weโll have 160.โ
Over the 48-hour period, more than 4,000 donations were received. One large donation was directly made to Raw Potential, on behalf of the Chappell Foundation for $75,000 and Canberra Data Centre for $25,000 at the kick-off event on Tuesday 9 March.
Raw Potential aims to empower disadvantaged youth by providing non-judgemental support and opportunities, including legal advice, healthcare, rehabilitation and counselling. Since the charityโs beginning in 1986, over 10,000 children have received support.
Chair of Raw Potential Canberra, Paul Kane, said the donations they received will be โlife changingโ.
โIt will be life changing for about 126 of Canberraโs at risk and vulnerable kids,โ he said.
โHands Across Canberra are doing a great job for all charities across Canberra โฆ During COVID they were the guiding light for many of the charities that were worried about whether itโs sensible to stay open or go into our own form of lockdown.
โThey gave us the confidence to continue to trade and of course that was the absolute right decision because thatโs when the kids needed us the most.โ
Zango also made a $10,000 donation to the Leukemia Foundationโs โWorldโs Greatest Shaveโ which saw Peter Gordon shave his head at the event. Mr Gordon was extremely happy with the initial target but was encouraged to stretch it further as the charities were extremely motivated to keep on going and raise as much as they could in the limited timeframe.
โThe message for Canberrans is the majority of Canberrans are fine; weโre healthy, wealthy, living in very connected city but there are some people who arenโt connected,โ he said.
โThey donโt have a sense of belonging, there are people who donโt have a home to sleep in tonight. There are some people with disability that the system just isnโt caring for, there are women who are legitimately running away from terror and they need somewhere to go.
โThere are 300 charities in Canberra, all of which do great work and all of which need a lot of help. The more that we connect the people in Canberra with those 300 charities, suddenly weโre better off.โ
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