I was approached by a friend, Margarita, asking me to do a fundraiser for her colleague’s brother who was involved in a terrible car accident in August 2010. While having the conversation over dinner, I mentioned to her that I thought that because this guy has gone through so much trauma in the past couple of months, perhaps we should have a comedy evening in his honour.
Jonathan was involved in an accident but cannot recall what happened. He was sober and does not remember his car rolling four times (witnesses gave this account). He was in a coma for almost a month and he had a lot of internal bleeding as a result of him wearing a seatbelt (if he had not, he would be alive). However, he then had septicemia and as a result they had to cut his torso (which still remains partially open). He also broke his pelvis and arm. He recently underwent a hip replacement.
He is on a hospital plan but unfortunately, when he leaves the care of hospital and returns home, he will still have to undergo intensive rehabilitation – and this he does not have the funds for.
Never having hosted a comedy night before, I thought to myself how did I get myself into suggesting this! However, fate always plays a part in making things AMAZING.
The next week one of our Groupies, Mel, sent us an invite to a comedy night at Jet Nightclub. To summarise what happened next, we met with Darren Maule and Adrian (the owner of Jet) and I said “we want the club and comedians for free”. My best asset came into play, my big mouth. I then met with Bevan Cullinan (a.ka. Gary the Tooth Fairy) who contacted his friends and we had our dream line-up for the event – Darren Maule (MC), Bevan Cullinan, Malcolm Ferreira, Joey Rasdien and John Vlismas – all doing this for free. Adrian would give us the club for the night – free of charge. Thank you angels!
I met Jonathan, who is still in hospital and I said that we would do our best to raise as much money for him and others who would benefit from our Let’s Walk Fund (a fund we recently established in the aim and hope of getting people mobile!).
Now we needed to spread the word! We started with our database of supporters, set up a Facebook page, sent updates at least twice a week, placed the event on Jacaranda FM’s, Highveld 94.7’s and 5fm’s upcoming events pages. We e-mailed DJ’s at Highveld and 5fm asking to make an announcement about our fund raiser (at no cost of course). We were so excited when we heard that Alex Jay and DJ Fresh both read out details of the fund raiser. We also contacted WinkBall which reports back on various events who would be attending the night. Computicket were back on board helping us with ticket sales. A blogger contacted us and reported and advertised the event too – giving it more exposure.
We had some awesome sponsors on the night – SterKinekor, Disney, SterKinekor POPS, Miq Miles, JLT Interiors, Rhapsody’s, Sun International and Sausage Saloon (who donated a portion of their total hot dog sales). There was an auction, raffle and “donor box”.
The evening was an awesome fund raiser and a huge success. The feedback we received from those attending was resounding – an awesome night out having a laugh and raising funds for a worthy cause. In the end, over R40,000.00 profit was raised for the Let’s Walk Fund.
Yours in Circle,
Sofia Vourazeris
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