Sydney
23 June 2002
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St Pio – newest saint
US calls in Australian archbishop
Order pays $3.6 million
Fund for ‘tragic cases’
Shame and sorrow for all in Church, says schools head
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Opinion: A role for entertainment and media in ‘new evangelisation’
A new beginning for Tampa refugees
Inspirations: Good hair day for young Maronites
Inspirations: Good hair day for young Maronites
“This is much easier than I thought”– Fr Geoffrey Abdallah sacrifices his hair
By Marilyn Kerjean
Young people from Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church, Harris Park, were elated to discover they had raised more than $165,000 for the Millennium Foundation at Westmead Hospital to assist its research in the ongoing fight against leukaemia.
But the charity night that raised most of the money began on a sad note – a tribute to one of the members of the charity drive committee, Sally-Anne Baynie, who died of leukaemia last month.
The 25-year-old parishioner at St George’s Maronite Catholic Church, Thornleigh, was the inspiration in choosing the goal of the Maronite Youth Organis-ation’s annual charity drive – $82,000 to buy Westmead Hospital’s first EliSpot Reader, a machine used to improve leukaemia treatments.
The charity night at the Morley Centre, Westmead, saw that goal easily surpassed.
And the leader of the Maronite Youth Organisation, Fr Geoffrey Abdallah, made a big contribution, offering on the spur of the moment to have his head shaved for $10,000.
“They passed a bucket around (to collect donations) and I said if they gave $10,000 I would shave my head, thinking that at that stage of the night – it was midnight – I wouldn’t get it,” he said.
He did.
“The initial target of $82,000 was easily exceeded due to the generosity and support of those present,” Fr Geoffrey said.
The previous record was $70,000, which the Maronite youth group raised for the Geraldine Fund for Cancer at Westmead Hospital last year.
About 950 people took part in the charity night, which was led by celebrity master of ceremonies, the Footy Show’s Mario Fenech.
The Maronite Bishop of Sydney, Bishop Ad Abikaram, was a guest speaker, as were Dr Linda Bendall, from Westmead Hospital’s leukaemia ward, and author Loubna Haikal.
DJs from Sydney community radio station 2RDJ joined cast members from the SBS sitcom Pizza and Parramatta Eels rugby league footballers to provide the entertainment.
“This inspiring and generous side of Australian Lebanese Catholic youth is so often unnoticed and unreported in the wider Australian community,” said Fr Geoffrey.
The only way to bring balance to the negative publicity that has marred young Australian Lebanese in the past, he said, is for them to do positive works – serving as role models for the wider community, especially other youth.
This years’ mammoth fundraising effort also included a charity golf day and a Sydney Harbour cruise.
The money raised was presented to the Millennium Foundation at a youth Mass in Harris Park.
As well as the EliSpot Reader it will be used to buy another machine for Westmead Hospital.
The Reader is used in trying to identify individually the right kind of donor cells (for example bone marrow cells) for transplant that will avoid the potentially fatal Graft versus Host Disease.
With this disease, the donor’s bone marrow attacks the patient’s organs and tissue.
The EliSpot Reader system works by identifying which of the donor’s cells react only with the patient’s leukaemic cells, and which may also react with and kill off normal cells in the patient as well.