Beauaraba Living, an award winning aged care home in Pittsworth, has been raising funds for a very special event, ‘Shave for Shelley’ held on Wednesday, August 26th . The event was initiated by Kate Hanley, executive assistant at Beauaraba Living, to show support for Shelley Metcalf, wife of the general manager, Alex Metcalf, who has been on a journey with cancer.
Kate said, “When I approached Shelley about doing a fundraiser she was wonderful. She insisted that she wanted the funds to go back into Pittsworth and specifically to Beauaraba Living to create something full of life. It has been an amazing journey, and today was unbelievable!â€
Staff members at Beauaraba Living supported the event by offering to shave their hair, with earlier publicity events such as dying their hair pink and red to draw attention to themselves for the fundraising. Kate Hanley, Sarita Reimers and Murray French, who are all staff, along with Sammie Fuhlbohm, Kate’s daughter and David Cox, a resident of Beauaraba Living, all offered to shave their heads.
Most of the staff also joined in the fun by wearing colourful clothes and colouring their hair with chalk and spray or wearing wigs. Their festive hair colouring was contagious, as visitors and residents took part in the fun which went for most of the day. Shelley Metcalf was touched by the event and said, “Shaving your head is a very big deal, and I truly appreciate all who participated. They will be blessed abundantly for this.” With a heartfelt response from Kate, “I’d shave my head in a heartbeat for you, Shelley.”
The corridors of Beauaraba Living were full of life throughout the day as Alex Metcalf and other staff members dressed up in cow costumes and called for donations to ‘the cash cow’ as a final countdown to “The Last Man Standing†fundraiser. Christina and Murray French also donated a trolley of groceries from local IGA Pittsworth, worth $300 which helped raise thousands for the event.
After all of the brave participants heads were shaved by Shelley, a former hairdresser, Alex Metcalf ended the fundraiser with the good news that “$15,651 has been raised “, with donations continuing to come in.
