Martin Conrads Memorial Show and Shine 2023, 13 January 2023
The Martin Conrads Memorial Show and Shine started as a way to remember a young man who had a massive passion for utes.
Martin Conrads, whom this show is held in his honour, was an inspiring young man and was one of the three founders of Utes United Australia. This group brings people from all across Australia to share their love of Utes and to find people with the same passion. Martin was born on 22nd January 2002 and tragically passed away in an accident on 11th April 2021; he was 19 years old.
He was a massive supporter of Dolly's Dream and had many talks with all of us about one day starting a ute show and raising funds for Dolly's Dream. The Martin Conrads Memorial Show and Shine fundraiser is the most fitting way to continue his memory.
We have run the Martin Conrads Memorial Show and Shine event twice at the Collie Hotel in rural NSW. This event has brought together everyone to share in his passion. Each year, we have had a fantastic turnout of people and have raised money through raffles, auctions, donation tins and even a yabby race this year!
We look forward to supporting Dolly's Dream again at our 2024 Martin Conrads Memorial Show and Shine, held on 20th January at Collie Hotel.
Bridgetown High School, 8 March – 8 December 2023
Bridgetown High School decided to support Dolly’s Dream because we felt that mental health is an important topic in today’s society. At the start of every year, the Student Forum members research a worthy charity and then present their findings to the group for a vote. Dolly’s Dream was introduced by a Year 8 Representative, who was very persuasive in her presentation! We organised free dress days, held cake & slice stalls, cooked sausage sizzles and hot dogs, and sold icipoles. We also participated in Do It For Dolly Day, where everyone wore something blue and wrote messages of kindness to one another. We also provided information about Dolly’s Dream at our school assemblies and through our newsletters and daily notices. We had an overwhelming and positive amount of support from the student body and staff. The majority of our school community participated in our events and fundraisers. We have been able to donate $2800 to Dolly’s Dream thus far, with a further donation to come at the end of the year. Whilst Dolly’s Dream may not be our focus charity in 2024 and beyond, the Student Forum endeavours to continue supporting Do It For Dolly Day in the coming years.
North West Cow Horse Be Kind, March 2 – 6 2023
The North West Cow Horse Club chose to support Dolly’s Dream for a couple of reasons, which included the Dolly’s Dream message of kindness and all that the organisation represents very much resonated with the committee as something we wished to promote throughout our club. It was also important to us that the event was not just about competing but about coming together and supporting each other. And that the Dolly’s Dream message kept being seen and heard. We ran a Dolly’s Dream Cow Horse competition with the Annual Tamworth Show. We encouraged everyone to come dressed in blue, whether you were a competitor, Judge, or Spectator, in support, recognition and remembrance of Dolly. We had a prize for the best-dressed horse and rider in the youth category, and we also gave out a special encouragement award to a rider in the Greener than Grass event. We also ran a draw where anyone who donated to our North West Cow Horse Dolly’s Dream fundraiser put their names in a draw to win a Dolly’s Dream overnight bag. It was an Arena of BLUE! Our event was well supported, and many local schools from around Tamworth came in to watch. We could explain why everyone was in blue and the importance of raising awareness. All our competitors dressed in Blue, and a lot bought Dolly’s Dream Merchandise for the event, which was even nicer. It has been agreed that we would like to continue to support Dolly’s Dream at the North West Cow Horse event every year. Our club runs two shows yearly, and we plan to make one of those shows our Annual Dolly’s Dream Show to continue spreading the message of Be Kind. We have lots of ideas rolling around!
Darlington State School’s Colour run event, 23 June 2023
Darlington State School is a small country school, and Dolly's Dream really resonated with us. Dolly's story needs to be told to save more young children from that path. The organisation represents a beautiful message to be spread to our school community. We held a colour run on our last day of term and fundraised for it. We have some fantastic local businesses in our school community that were happy to collect from their customers, too, which really helped. As a small school with only 31 students at the time, we raised over $800 to donate. The Kerry Rural Fire Brigade also came to start the run with a light sprinkle from their fire hose. Before the colour run, on Do It For Dolly Day, we wore jeans for Dolly, created butterflies with lovely messages, and hung them at our tree near our front gate. The children and parents had a wonderful time, and we had a very successful fundraiser, which is a win-win! And we plan to support the organisation again in future years.
Halloween Spectacular, 31 October 2023
I do a massive Halloween display every year, which hundreds of kids come out to see. This year, I decided to give the kids the opportunity to give back by fundraising to support Dolly's Dream. The story of Young Amy Everett touched me all those years ago as I struggled with my own demons as a child. Dolly's story broke my heart. More needs to be done, and I believe more young lives can be saved by the wonderful work Dolly's Dream is doing. Over the years, I've purchased merchandise and donated money when my kid's school had fundraisers. Although I only raised $230 with my first fundraiser, I'm proud of the effort and look forward to doing it all again next year and hopefully raising more money to support this wonderful cause.
Year 12 Formal Volunteer Parents Committee - Glen Innes High Year 12, 4 April to 1 December 2023
Our local high school does not host OR FUND the Year 12 Formal. This separate event is organised by a group of volunteer parents and is held after the students have graduated. Therefore, the main reason for our fundraising is to have adequate funds for every Year 12 student to attend the formal and receive photos and videos of all Year 12 activities free of charge. This ensures every student has the opportunity to participate. We also raise these funds knowing that all money left after the costs of the formal are covered will be donated to a charity.
The Year 12 students, as a group, choose the charity they wish to contribute to each year, so a different charity organisation is selected each year. As a committee, we were delighted to hear Dolly’s Dream was their chosen charity; there are a lot of worthwhile charities to choose from, but this one was very age-appropriate. We held various fundraising activities throughout the year, which included:
- Our first fundraiser was selling wood at the local Celtic Festival to those camping at our local Showground.
- We held an Easter raffle at the High School.
- Recycling cans from local Rugby events.
- The students worked on the gate at the rugby and cooked BBQs at the rugby and the local markets.
- We ran the canteen at the High School Athletics carnival.
- Selling and delivering Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
- A Trivia Night
- The local Lions Club held a Hot Chip Day at the High School.
- A movie night.
Some of the highlights from our fundraising activities included selling 9,984 doughnuts at our Krispy Kreme doughnut fundraiser, which is three pallets, to be precise! The trivia night was terrific. One of the students’ parents ran the entire night for us, including writing out questions, scoring and MCing the night. A lot of laughing was involved, and everyone had a great time. We are fortunate to have a wonderful local Lions Club as a community. They hold a yearly fundraiser for the Year 12 students by cooking Hot Chips for lunch one day at school and donating all profits to the Year 12 formal committee.
Raising funds for Dolly’s Dream has been wonderful, and everyone involved this year feels very strongly about this great organisation. We will all continue contributing in any way possible, whether dressing in blue, donating on Do It For Dolly Day, buying new merchandise as it is released, or becoming a monthly sponsor.
We are incredibly proud of our Year 12 graduates and all the efforts they put in this year to make it such a successful fundraising year for an incredible charity that is doing such positive work within communities all over Australia.
St Mary's Primary School (Dubbo) Year Six BBQ and Dress Up Day Fundraiser, 10 November 2023
The year six students at St Mary's Primary School in Dubbo held a BBQ and dress-up day fundraiser supporting Dolly's Dream.
The event organiser, Gabi, says, " The kids had a great day. We started the morning collaborating on a poster design with blue handprints and coloured in 'Speak Even When Your Voice Shakes'. We then watched the Project's video on Dolly's Dream and discussed the importance of recognising the signs of bullying and mental health issues with our friends. The kids then enjoyed a blue sausage and slushy drink and had their hair sprayed blue!
It was a great opportunity to build relationships and open doors for conversations before our kids go to high school next year.
Pony Club Western Australia, May – DIFDD fundraiser
Whether our members are in the country or metropolitan areas, we believe they may experience bullying. The Pony Club Western Australia Showjumping committee chose to support the Dolly’s Dream Community Sports Club Program to help navigate bullying issues and share the Dolly’s Dream message of kindness with our members and our local community. To support Do It For Dolly Day, the Showjumping committee held a raffle and an online auction and collected gold coin donations over the two-and-a-half days of our State Competition. Our fundraiser was very successful, raising over $1k in support of Dolly’s Dream. We will again support Do It For Dolly Day 2024 through our Showjumping event in May.
Each year the Berrigan Netball Club choose a charity organisation where the funds raised will go towards helping our club members and our club community. Our club supported Do It For Dolly Day by hosting a Sock Day against our rival team Jerilderie with all 5 grades of football and 8 grades of netball wearing the Dolly’s Dream branded sports socks. We also held a charity raffle and all funds raised were donated to Dolly’s Dream. Our Do It For Dolly Day fundraiser was a huge success raising over $3,500!
Stockton Bowling Club, 3rd December 2023
The Stockton Bowling Club, three local schools and five local sports clubs worked together to host a coloured sports day to support Dolly’s Dream. Raelene, “the event organiser, said everyone was so sad and shocked to hear that Dolly Everett had taken her own life at such a young age because of bullying and knowing how easily it could happen to any of the children in our local Stockton community. The children and volunteers who attended the coloured sports day event had a wonderful time trying different activities, and we finished the day off with a colour run. The timing of our event so close to Christmas was not ideal. Because everyone had such a great time, we plan to hold another event at a different time next year. We hope that knowing how much fun we had on this day will warm the hearts of Dolly’s family.”
