2017 Live for Lily Butterfly Ball
Frank Dowling Real Estate, as a sponsor, was proud to be a part of this year’s Lily For Lily Butterfly Ball held at Crown’s Palladium Ballroom on Friday 30th July 2017.
It was truly an incredible night with 595 guests all attending for a great cause. The generosity was overflowing as the auctions heated up, raffles sold out, prizes and giveaways won by those in luck. A whopping $150,783.83 from the night was raised for the Live for Lily Foundation Foundation in its mission to raise enough money and awareness for childhood cancer.
The night began with a very special (and surprise) performance by the Australian Girls Choir who performed an incredible 20 minute set climaxing in an unforgettable version of Cold Play’s “Fix You” which left many with a tear in their eye.
After this, the formalities kicked off with our fabulous MC Jo Stanleywelcoming everyone and introducing Live for
Lily co-founder Aaron Hesterto the stage who spoke again from the heart about what this foundation means to not only himself, but to everyone involved. He spoke about what its like to be a parent of child suffering from cancer and the heart ache of possibly never getting over the fact that he has lost his little girl. He also spoke as to why this night is so vitally important for our Foundation in our mission to raise enough money and awareness into childhood cancer so that no other child, or parent, has to go through what he, Sianne and Lily went through. It really was an inspirational speech.
After this, Aaron, on behalf of the Live for Lily Foundation presented Anne Johnston from the Children’s Cancer Institute a cheque for $150,000, being the funds raised from this years Ride for Lily from Sydney to Melbourne.
This was an amazing moment and one all the people involved in the foundation are so very proud of to see all the hard work that’s put in have a very real impact. To put this into perspective, this will fund two medical researchers at the Institute for a whole year so we are very proud of this achievement.
After a beautiful dinner, Anne Johnston from the Children’s Cancer Institute returned to the stage and spoke of the work the CCIA are doing in their fight against childhood cancer, in particular the ground breaking Zero Childhood Cancer Program, which is about to be kicked off in a national clinical trial in the coming months. The program is the first of its kind and is giving real hope to those children whose chances of survival are less than 30% the best possible chance of beating their disease, and why fund raisers like the Butterfly ball are so critically important from a funding perspective.
Pasquale Scaturchio, General Manager from Airport Toyota and fantastic friend of Live for Lily launched our 2018
Ride for Lily – Ride to the Rock, along with a very cool video montage from this years epic Sydney to Melbourne ride. The 2018 Ride to the Rock with be the most challenging ride yet – 1,000km over 6 days on the famous Oodnadatta Track finishing at Uluru. #HaveYouGotWhatItTakes?
Finally, the last official proceeding was the huge raffle where a Toyota Yaris, donated by Airport Toyota, was given to one lucky person in the room, along with 14 other very cool prizes. Amongst all of this, the night concluded with some great music again by the band Full Circle Band.
To say again that we are so very proud to be involved in this fantastic foundation in its mission to raise money and awareness of childhood cancer!
For donations to the Live For Lily Foundation click here http://liveforlily.org.au/product/donation/
