Halloween on the green

Bondi Bowling Club is celebrating Halloween this weekend with a fundraiser for the Leukaemia Foundation.

The club will be hosting a Halloween-themed tournament this Saturday with prizes awarded for the best dressed teams. Attendees are invited to dress up in Halloween costumes and spend the evening relaxing while bowling.

Attendees can donate $100 for a game of four, which will go directly to the Leukaemia Foundation. The fundraiser is targeted towards raising money for helping rural and regional sufferers.

“Being diagnosed with blood cancer is hard enough, but the impact can be even greater for regional Australians,” said Leukaemia Foundation General Manager, Chris McMillian. “Those who live outside metropolitan areas are often forced to commute to receive treatment.”

Affected individuals are faced with expenses such as travel and accommodation as well as absences from work, school, or university on top of the trauma of the diagnosis. The Leukaemia Foundation raises funds for families to stay in accommodation complexes near major treatment centres.

“The accommodation complexes are entirely covered by the foundation and help to ease the stress of the treatment process,” said Leukaemia Foundation representative, Sharon Chang.

Kelly Brandon, General Manager of Bondi Bowling Club, said attendees can look forward to crazy costumes, bowling, apple bobbing games and live music.

“There’ll be a band playing at 6 or 7 o’clock in the evening,” she said. “The Gene Fehlberg band will be playing with drums, sax, vocals and percussion.

“I love fancy dress, so I just thought it would be more fun to have everyone dressed up and then we could use it as a selling point to say anyone best dressed. We can obviously donate a prize to that person.”

For every $80 raised by the campaign, a family will be able to spend one night in accommodation provided by the foundation. In many cases, those diagnosed with a form of Leukaemia may need to spend months or even years revisiting treatment centers to fight the disease. Last financial year, the foundation was able to provide 17,663 nights of accommodation to 951 families.

The Halloween fundraiser will be held this Saturday at 2.30pm. Those interested can register at the Bondi Bowls Club at 1 Warners Ave, Bondi or call 9130 2383.

By Louisa Studman