Is it just me or does helping someone else feel great!

Is it just me or does helping someone else feel great!

It’s a fact the people of the Sunshine Coast worked out long ago.
In the month of June, the Sunshine Coast donated half a million dollars to Mix FM’s Give Me Five for Kids, a month long campaign to raise money for sick kids and their families.

If you overthink it, the world can be an anxious place. For me the month of June makes the world a little smaller and much warmer.
Give Me Five for Kids is not just about the needs of the people we raise money for, it’s about the givers too.
It’s about a community that has a bigger view of the world.

The Dalai Lama said, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” The same is true of generosity.
And it’s good for you too, we now know generosity reduces stress, it enhances your sense of purpose and naturally fights depression, which will ultimately increase your life span.

Because of your generosity, we will fund local Clown Doctors, the value of which can never be underestimated.
GM54K will fund Children’s Yoga Therapy, calming gowns to help treat children with Autism and an Inter-hospital Paediatric Critical Care Transport Team, which will keep little ones alive until we get them to hospital.

That equipment is currently only available for Brisbane hospitals, so it will help keep our kids closer. For Summer Wallbank and her very unwell son Archer it will mean they can move home to Noosa after 18 months of separation from Archer’s dad Tom. Truly life changing.

GM54K is so entrenched, people now come up to me at the shops to tell me how it made a difference to them.

People with very sick children who feel the love of the community every time they are dragged back to the children’s ward by a bleed, a seizure or a fever.
All these kids are deeply loved by parents doing their best to understand their child’s disease and make adjustments the whole family must live with.
Most of us are lucky enough to never go through that.

The best thing we can do is give generously.

I know for a fact that when a parent lies on a comfy bed beside their child instead of sitting up all night in a plastic chair, when they read the sign that says the TV above the bed has been provided free of charge by GM54K, or when a piece of life-saving equipment prevents a trip to Brisbane, they feel – just for a moment – that the rest of us are with them, that their family matters to the Sunshine Coast.

And if you ask me, that’s money well spent.

Caroline xx