Picture this: a thousand people decked out in black tie on the Brisbane Airport tarmac, in a massive hanger transformed into a ballroom, complete with acrobats twirling from the ceiling and red carpet. Virgin Blue really know how to party! 

 

Green Cross was delighted to be selected as a charity for this year’s big event, hosted by Sir Richard Branson, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, and Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey. Their aim was to raise over $1 million for a group of fantastic charities.  

 

Green Cross CEO Mara Bun and her husband Stuart Hall were inspired by the huge commitment of Virgin Blue staff to this great initiative. After a fabulous entre appeared at 7:45pm sharp, the lights went out and the entire event participated in Earth Hour. The crowd danced like 20-year olds to bands Evermore and Rogue Traders and the fabulous Marcia Hines.  

 

Mara and Stu shared a table with some amazing charities like Engineers Without Borders  - who are building a community centre with the indigenous Kooma Nation powered by solar energy; Souths Cares  - the Rabbitohs charity which assists disadvantaged indigenous communities, and our favourite,  Link-up – a group that reunites Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander members of the Stolen Generation. It was inspiring for Green Cross to be part of such amazing community initiatives. 

 

The auction was truly unbelievable. People spent tens of thousands of dollars on the quirkiest, most glamorous and outright outrageous items like Seven year naming rights on a Virgin Blue jet, Richard Branson’s hand made diamond-laced wrist watch and a walk-on part in a crowd scene in Russell Crowe’s film “Nottingham” being filmed in Hollywood plus coffee with Russell on the set. Talk about using your imagination to fundraise! 

 

Green Cross looks forward to kicking off its Climate Heroes online community network with the support from this event. We will showcase and support the new generation of emergency volunteers that will support Australia from the floods, fires and storms of climate changes that lie ahead.

 

We will select five young volunteers from the SES, Red Cross, St John’s Ambulance Service, Rural Bush Fire Brigade and Surf Lifesavers, and will give them state-of-the-art handheld video cameras, blackberries and digital cameras to capture what its like to help during extreme weather events.  

 

Our campaign will wind its way through Facebook and MySpace pages, will scatter brave videos from the coal face of climate impacts across YouTube, and will create the largest interactive emergency volunteering blog in the world right on the Green Cross website.  More to come soon.

 

Thank you Virgin Blue!

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