Events | The Foothills Foundation

UR Retreat

by Bec Tonkin | Nov 16, 2023 | Events, News

The Foothills Foundation is a proud supporter of the UR Retreat which is a 4 day camp for teenage girls aged 13-15. Many of the girls have been put forward by their schools who feel they would benefit from the camp which focuses on self esteem, leadership skills, positive body image, and many other life skills and topics that are so important in this day and age.

This amazing camp has been put together and run by the local charity Bridge Builders. Each year they host between 50-70 young women. The UR Retreat is planned and executed by an experienced team of volunteer leaders, who use their skills and knowledge to create a caring and nurturing environment where the young people feel safe, loved, and free of judgement so they can begin their journey of development and discovering their value. Along with our leadership team, the UR Retreat also provides a range of inspirational speakers and educational workshop facilitators to give the girls a wide range of skills, to learn how to live their life to their full potential, and bounce back from setbacks.

President Tamara Lloyd was privileged to attend, and hand out achievement medals to the girls, at the Sponsors Dinner at the Toolangi camp on 27th September. She commented “it was so wonderful to meet many of the girls on the night and chat to them about the positive experiences they’d been having on the camp and all the beautiful friendships they’d made. It was particularly great to hear how much more confident they felt in themselves, and how they felt they were more ready to take on the challenges of life after being on the camp”.

We want to congratulate the UR Retreat leadership team, headed up by Bonnie Knight, who have done an amazing job again this year. This year we contributed $5000 toward the camp and we look forward to again sponsoring the camp in 2024!

High tea a hit again!

by admin | Jul 11, 2022 | Events, News

The Foothills Foundation’s Annual High Tea celebrating women and family in our community was again held at Karralyka on Sunday 15 May 2022.

This year, the event was held in support of the Bridge Builders Youth Charity’s UR Retreat, an annual event that has been running for 15 years to help young women to build self-esteem and life skills.

The keynote speaker was the remarkable Bec Mitchell, who was once a client of Bridge Builders and went on to become their Executive Officer and the driving force behind the UR Retreat.

Bec also represented Australia in endurance athletics running 7 marathons on 7 days on 7 continents and was a recent contestant on the SAS TV program.

Bec told an amazing personal story about living with struggle but flourishing with the benefit of people believing in her and her own determination to be the best that she can be. It was really inspiring.

Karralyka (as always) put on a fantastic event with quality food and great service. Our own Natalie Hallett stepped in to MC the event at short notice and did a fabulous job and Jeremy Tyrrell from Ray White Croydon was back once again in an entertaining performance as Auctioneer that really delivered results.

Thanks to those outstanding results (more than $14,000 was raised), we have been able to fund 50% of the available places on the UR-Retreat this year providing 35 young women with the opportunity to participate. That is having an impact on community.

We have also contributed to Anchor’s Kinship Care Appeal

Thank you to Pinchapoo who again provided giftbags for all guests and Eastland who provided major auction items and helped us in a number of other ways.

Thank you also to everyone who attended and for everyone who chipped in with auction items or raffle prizes and to those of you who put your hand up in the auctions.

High Tea a great success

by admin | Jun 5, 2021 | Events

One of the highlights of our calendar in 2021 was our Mothers’ Day Morning Tea held at the Karralyka Centre in Ringwood on May 16th. This event is a fairly new event for the Foothills Foundation and has come about over the last couple of years with the addition of a number of new female members to the Foothills Board which we have not previously had.

The event is focused on being a fun and positive afternoon celebrating women in our community and also focuses on women sharing stories of their resilience, community involvement and vulnerability.

This year we had a fantastic lineup of local women who had been personally helped, or their organisation had been assisted by Foothills Foundation Grants. They included Jenny Willetts, Managing Director of Sable One, Kate Coleman, Jim Fuller Community House Group and Jodie Piper whose family had personally been assisted in a time of need by Foothills Foundation. The women were well spoken, insightful and had interesting stories to share, a real eye opener as to what’s needed in our community and also a real inspiration as to what amazing people are in our community that help others.

We also briefly heard from Board Members Lauren Gordon, Natalie Hallett, Tamara Lloyd and Tegan Rose and Belinda King from Pinchapoo.

In addition to hearing from this panel of legendary women we also raised over $10,000 from ticket sales, our live auction (run by Ray White Croydon’s Auctioneer Jeremy Tyrrell), and our raffle.

Foothills Foundation also teamed up with Pinchapoo who redistribute hygiene products to those in need located in Bayswater. Kate Austin – Founder of Pinchapoo kindly donated show bags of goodies to our guests to help boost ticket sales and also provided numerous raffle prizes.

Overall the afternoon was a huge success and a lot of laughs and a great way for women to have fun with some friends and also network with other women in our community. We can’t wait for the 2022 High Tea, it will be bigger and better again!

We would like to thank those individuals and organisations who donated their gifts and time including but not limited

Merry Christmas from the Foothills Foundation

by Bec Tonkin | Dec 24, 2020 | Events

This year’s Christmas Rendezvous really was a time to rejoice as we were at last allowed to gather in numbers and you really could feel the joy in the room. It was great to see so many familiar faces along to enjoy the evening.

Members of the White family once again graced us with their presence and presented the Clinton White Award for outstanding community service. This year, it was another very worthy recipient in current Board member Paul McPherson who has been a foundation stalwart for decades and also serves local and regional communities in a myriad of other ways. Congratulations, Paul.

Also honoured with induction as a life member was Steve Atchison who has also been a great servant and former Treasurer of the Foundation for many years. Steve has a long standing local business Branchline and he is always there at our events pitching in donations or as a helper on the day. Another deserved honour — congratulations, Steve.

During this year, the Foundation joined with the Wheelton Group in a special partnership to help a young family with serious challenges. The mum, Jodie, came along and told her story and what a difference the support provided made to her and her two daughters.

$2,000 grants were made to the Kindness Community, Helping hand and Southern Cross Kids Camps and some of the recipients of grants during the year were also on hand to tell their stories.

It has been a tough year. For the Foundation, that meant that we couldn’t run any of our fund raising events. Thanks to the hard work and foresight of previous Committees and particularly leader like Daryl Stevens, Paul McPherson and Tony Wright, the Foundation has a sound financial footing. So not only was the Foundation able to get through the pandemic OK, it was also able to do more to help those in need in the community.

Thanks must go to the Grants Committee of Bruce Stewart, Tegan Rose and Mandy Maguire for the great job they have done throughout the year.

Thanks also to Mr Fox for looking after everyone and providing great food and service yet again.

Finally, the Board extends thanks to all who have supported the Foothills Foundation all the way back to when it was the Footmen Club. That thanks especially goes to our premium sponsors, Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark. We sincerely hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and that we get to see more of you in 2021 when we can run our events again.

AFL Finals Lunch another great success

by Bec Tonkin | Oct 10, 2019 | Events, News

The annual AFL Finals Charity Lunch was well attended on Thursday 19 September 2019 at the Karralyka Centre who again did a great job looking after the 120 people in attendance.

This year’s event was again excellently facilitated by Bruce Eva with a panel of three outstanding guests in Melbourne’s champion ruckman Max Gawn and Lauren Pierce (who also recently won the 2019 VFLW Best and Fairest) and the wonderful former St Kilda and Brisbane player and media personality, Gilbert McAdam. They each had great stories to tell and a bit more was added given the close associations that Gilbert and Bruce had with the St Kilda Football Club and Danny Frawley whose memorial service was on the day before the lunch.

Not unexpectedly, this led to some reflections on the issue of mental health and how each of our guests perceived the challenges in their own worlds. They all also shared some humorous and some inspiring stories of life in elite sport and the communities in which they have lived.

Raffles and auctions were well supported and enabled us to make a significant donation to Biala Ringwood who provide respite support for parents with children with additional needs.

A special thanks and congratulations to Grant and Nick Brookes of Warranbrooke for your auction success winning the signed Max Gawn footy jumper – well done.

Thanks to everyone who supported the event by attending or donating a raffle prize or auction item or making a donation. Special thanks too to Daryl Stevens, Jim Dean, Paul McPherson and the rest of the Board and volunteers for making the event happen and for your continued support for the Foothills Foundation and the work that we do in “Improving the lives of disadvantaged people in our community” of Maroondah, Yarra Ranges and surrounds.

Thanks also for the continued and generous sponsorship of Bendigo Community Bank Morroolbark.

7 ways to help us help our community

by Bec Tonkin | Jul 25, 2019 | Events, Grants, Membership, News, Sponsorship

The Foothills Foundation is operated by a team of dedicated volunteers.

We need and welcome any help that people, businesses and other organisations can offer to assist us in raising funds and connecting with people and community services that need a hand.

Here are 7 ways that you can help us in our work of “Improving the lives of disadvantaged people in our community”:

Become a member – for just $50 for an individual, $75 for a family and $100 for an organisation, it is a small annual investment that makes a difference – learn more and join at https://foothills.org.au/product/membership/
Make a donation or bequest – the Foothills Foundation is a registered charity with full tax deductability for donations – explore at https://foothills.org.au/donations/
Attend an event – we run a variety of quality events each year as a primary fund raising avenue – there is sure to be something of interest. See what’s on at https://foothills.org.au/events/
Tell community services in Maroondah and Yarra Ranges about us and how we might help them and their disadvantaged clients with special needs and connect us at grants@foothills.org.au
Sponsor the Foundation or an event. It is good business because people want to work with and do business with organisations that are involved in and support their local community. As the Foundation President, I would love to hear from you so give me a call on 0438 533 311.
Help us to extend our reach and connection with people and organisations across Maroondah and Yarra Ranges by liking our facebook page and sharing our stories
Donate prizes for auction and raffle items to help us raise more funds at events – contact us at events@foothills.org.au.

Of course, if you have the time and commitment to volunteer with us in some way, that would be great too. Give me a call on 0438 533 311 if that is of interest to you.

Peter Maguire

President