For the past eight years I’ve been privileged to work alongside a small band of volunteers in one of our community’s most loved and respected charities – Echuca Moama Girls Night Out.
Back in 2008, we set out on a path to provide extra care and financial support to those in our community living with cancer, and to shape a strong and vibrant network of women who are there for each other in times of need.
We established a special program at Echuca Regional Health with the primary aim of helping to cover the hidden costs of cancer treatment for those in our community affected by the disease.
Since that time, GNO events have poured more than $200,000 into the GNO Oncology Department Supportive Care Program – and more than 400 local families impacted by a cancer diagnosis have received financial support through the fund.
The GNO movement has taken on a life force of its own in recent years, and it has been a truly humbling experience to be part of a mission that is making such a meaningful difference in so many ways.
For me personally, I set out on this passage to help heal my own scars at losing my beautiful dad to prostate cancer when I was 23. He was 45 when we received the crushing blow that he had 12 months to live, and while I’ve adapted to life without him in the years since, I’ve never recovered.
But through GNO, I’ve been able to take small, important steps towards healing, and I’ve been able to do it alongside the most compassionate, loving girlfriends on the GNO committee who have each been on their own personal journeys of recovery after losing precious loved ones to cancer.
It is the most profound experience to be part of a crusade bigger than yourself – it gives you purpose, perspective and a gratitude for life that changes you from the inside out.
On the back of another hugely successful fundraising event last weekend, we’re dedicating this week’s #spreadingthegoodstuff post to GNO.
On Sunday, the women of our extraordinarily generous community turned out in their hundreds for our Lazy Sunday Afternoon event and filled the GNO bucket with another 36K.
36 thousand dollars in two hours you guys……. Drinking champagne and just hanging out with the sisterhood.
Lost. For. Words……
x Lee
#spreadingthegoodstuff
