A night of glitz and glamour was promised at the inaugural Mingle with the Mayor Ball and delivered along with an extraordinary $300,000 for Sunny Kids to provide emergency accommodation and support to mothers and children affected by domestic violence.
About 150 guests dressed to the nines at the Sofitel Noosa Resort Saturday night including special arrivals Olympian Dawn Fraser, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, rugby player Michael O’Connor, television presenter Kay McGrath and former Getaway presenter Kelly Landry.
The Voice runner up Luke Kennedy entertained the crowd with four inspiring tunes while funds were forthcoming with $17,000 in direct donations and $222,000 raised in live auctions of items donated by local businesses on the night with pledges and silent auctions left to tally later.
Noosa Mayor Clare Stewart welcomed guests to the event before taking to the stage to acknowledge special guests and pay tribute to those who made the event a reality.
“Tonight is about courage, it’s about speaking out and it’s about speaking up,“ she said.
“Standing firmly for what you believe in and being a voice for those with none. There is no greater champion of this than one particular person – Dawn Fraser or rather as Ted O’Brien MP refers to her: ‘Her Royal Highness’. “We have another Australian hero and according to our Olympic athletes the woman ‘who saved swimming’. Like Dawn, Mrs Rinehart has been a huge supporter of our country, our athletes and our community.
“They say it takes a village. Indeed it does. Tonight would not have been possible without a group of remarkable women who came together for the very best of reasons and I thank the Ball Team of Action wholeheartedly for their remarkable efforts. I’d also like to personally acknowledge the women’s circle, Leigh McCready and the legend that is Josanne Falla. Josanne has led the team and championed this cause from the very beginning and worked so incredibly hard.
“Noosa is at its best when it gets behind its own. The community support and business support for tonight has been overwhelming. The organising committee have given hundreds of hours of their time and the community has rallied.
“Domestic violence. We all hate it. We all want to eradicate it. It’s a disease destroying so many lives. Here in Noosa, incidents of domestic violence have increased by nearly 50 per cent since Covid. Our local police are spending 40 per cent of their working lives on incidents relating to DV. These stats are frightening but they are real. We can talk the talk but what we must now do is walk the walk. We must continue to advocate for more funding from government and we must continue to speak up. Tonight we speak up and all here tonight have stood up.“
Luke Kennedy echoed the mayor’s sentiments during the night when he sang his rendition of John Farnham’s song, You’re the Voice: We have the chance to turn the pages over; we can write what we want to write… Believing we can make it better. we’re not gonna sit in silence, we’re not gonna live with fear … make a noise and make it clear.
