465,000 Reasons

This past Saturday, 17^th May, was JDRF’s 17^th annual gala ball in Perth.
The theme was New York, New York and was held at Perth Convention Exhibition Centre.

A ballroom just shy of 600 guests saw charitable donations be given for live and silent auction items, raffle prizes, mystery boxes of wine and JDRF’s unique Fund a Cure program.

The figures are still adding up as we speak but by the end of Saturday night once all bidding and donations had been placed, the total amount raised for the night was announced as a phenomenal $465,000. Not bad for three hours worth of eating, drinking, buying pretty and fun things!

This figure saw JDRF WA go into its second year of record breaking results. This year’s gala did even better than 2013, and had the biggest revenue raised out of all of the JDRF state galas this year. (Brisbane is holding their event this coming Saturday 24^th May, but Perth still beat Sydney and Melbourne!).

The evening consisted of grand entertainment from the West Australian Ballet, Opera, WASO and Murphy’s Lore (Courtney Murphy and brothers’ band).

I was lucky enough to be appointed Head Volunteer for the evening, coordinating the team of 25 volunteers who had generously given up their Saturday night to help the greater charitable cause of fundraising to find a cure for type 1 diabetes.

My role was to be the point of contact for all queries during the evening from the volunteers and guests. The idea was to alleviate pressure from Kari & Jack (Development Manager & Coordinator). If I didn’t know the answer or had queries of my own I was to then contact either Kari or Jack, or one of the other two management personnel.

Finally heading home just after 2am, dreading my 7am start at work the following morning, I was talking with Jack and reflecting on the night.

There was plenty of feedback from guests and committee members regarding how well the evening went and how great the atmosphere and entertainment were.

As we were discussing the ins and outs of the evening, comparing his 2013 experience to this year (2014 was much smoother and enjoyable apparently!), I was beginning to see the benefits of all the tireless efforts and hard work by JDRF and their volunteer committee members.

The strength and camaraderie shown to successfully execute such a high calibre event with such a small team is astounding.

It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of physical and emotional pressure, and it’s so very worth it.

At the close of the night, you begin to recognise all the many reasons these generous people go to the efforts they do to create high profile event such as this.

465,000 reasons to continue to find a cure for a life long auto immune disease; to ease the pressure on families supporting a family member with type 1; to know you are contributing to making the every day lives of those affected easier and normalised; 465,000 reasons to turn Type One into Type None.