PORT ADELAIDE members and supporters have shown their generosity yet again, combining to raise more than $18,000 to help children with cancer.
Long-term Childhood Cancer Association (CCA) ambassador Travis Boak joined forces with local artist Marie Glezos to create a print featuring Boak and four other Port Adelaide stars that was raffled off to help raise funds for the organisation.
Boak’s teammates – Robbie Gray, Tom Jonas, Charlie Dixon and Xavier Duursma, who each featured in the painting, had also signed it ahead of the raffle.
Along with donations and sales of CCA merchandise, the raffle raised a total of $18,475.
CCA Chief Executive Cath O’Loughlin said the generosity of everyone involved had been a “lovely surprise”.
“We don’t receive any government funding so each year our biggest challenge is to try and raise $1 million to be able to provide the services we provide to over 400 families and over $18,000 is a huge amount of money for us,” she explained.
“That’s enough for us to provide six months of counselling for kids who are going through cancer, so it’s a really big impact and that’s going to help a lot of kids.
“We are extremely grateful to Marie and Travis, and of course to the Port Adelaide Football Club and all of the members and supporters who bought tickets and donated.
“People were very generous and we really appreciate it.”
Boak has been an ambassador for CCA for eleven years. The cause is close to his heart given he lost his father to cancer when he was a teenager.
It was almost fitting then that CCA was going to have been a game-day partner for the club’s Round 19 game against Collingwood at Adelaide Oval - Boak’s 300th game.
However, an outbreak of COVID-19 in Adelaide saw the game shifted to Melbourne, leaving CCA devastated.
But Ms O’Loughlin expressed her gratitude at how Boak and the club had still found a way to support the charity, including the donation of $3,798 in proceeds from the sale of the commemorative TB300 merchandise range being sold at the Port Store.
“That game day is a really big opportunity for us as a local charity,” Ms O’Loughlin said. “It was going to be a big day for us and for everyone at the club being Travis’ 300th game so we were expecting a big crowd and people being generous as they always are.
“It was an opportunity we were very much looking forward to and when it moved to Melbourne, it was devastating. To be able to find a way, with Travis and the club’s support, to still raise some vital funds has been incredible.
“Port has got such a good reputation when it comes to giving back to the community and we have seen that over the last seven or eight years since we’ve been a charity partner at the club.
“Given that this all happened in amongst probably the craziest time of the year with the COVID-19 outbreak and the club being forced to uproot to Melbourne, we are particularly grateful.”
For the record, the painting was won by a long-term supporter and club member David Bishop, who has kindly donated it to the club.
“When I rang David to tell him he had won the prize, he told me he really just wanted to give to a good cause, he never wanted to win a prize,” Ms O’Loughlin said.
“He bought tickets and made a donation and it’s so lovely that he’s such a long-term supporter of the club and his immediate reaction was to donate the painting to the club so a lot of people can enjoy it, rather than it sitting in his loungeroom and him being the only one who gets to see it.”
The last of the TB300 merchandise range, including t-shirts, hoodies, caps and scarves is available at the Port Store, with $2.00 from every sale being donated to CCA.
