Everyone who follows this project knows I’m a sucker for road trips of any kind, but this one blew me away on so many levels I don’t know where to begin.
In the UK I used to watch a lot of Australian TV and dream of what a life over here might be like. The Secret Life of Us was by far the best written, produced and performed of all of them and I only recently discovered there are whole extra series that never got broadcast over there. Since living and working in Australia around performance circuits I’ve bumped into a couple of the stars of the show – in fact *aw shucks* I became Facebook-friends with Todd MacDonald through hanging out with Danger Ensemble in Brisbane a while back. (Yeah I know, I’m a sad old cheesy fuckwit, but you knew that already, right?)
Yesterday (in prep toward my much-needed downtime) I started re-watching the series, something I’ve been wanting to do since I moved here in 2008. Funny how timing works. While watching (and loving it possibly even more than the first time around) I suddenly thought ‘Hey, I wonder if Todd is Facebook-friends with anyone from this series’ so I looked people up. (OK, I’ll be honest, I always thought Evan was cute so I looked Samuel Johnson up first). Sad, perhaps… but then I saw his campaign. Again, it’s funny how timing works.
Samuel Johnson’s campaign to unicycle around Australia to promote breast cancer awareness http://loveyoursister.org/
Any fears, doubts or concerns I may have had about my own road trip have gone. Every ounce of love and history I hold by naming my bus homeJames after James Mellor I doff toward Samuel and his sister Connie. They aim to raise $1million for Breast Cancer Awareness through the Garvan Institute. They have currently raised $434,608 and the journey ends in Kalgoorlie on July 13th. (Again, echoes of my own campaign timeline and goal distance rumble). I have donated and messaged them to see if there is anything my bus and I can do to support their journey but wanted at the very least to help them spread their word.
Their goals are:
- Set a new Guinness World Record for the most distance travelled on a unicycle
- Raise $1 million
- Spread Connie’s message of breast cancer awareness.
You can also dare him… tho right now I’d be more keen to dare him to take a long hot sauna than encourage anything mean!
Looking at the map on their site Samuel has seemingly done the most non-sequitur route possible and is currently in WA; he should be in Augusta tomorrow. To anyone I know in that neck of the woods, please go out and give him a hug from me and homeJames, OK? But treat him gently, he seems to have been travelling on a unicycle since Cootamundra, NSW, in October – he’ll be more than a little sore!
FOLLOW
http://loveyoursister.org
https://twitter.com/loveyoursister
https://www.facebook.com/loveyoursister
http://www.youtube.com/user/loveyoursisterTV
http://instagram.com/loveyoursister
DONATE
Frustratingly (for this geek) you can’t currently donate online but you can do these things:
In Person At any Bendigo Bank branch
via Phone 1300 73 66 77 (9am – 5pm AEST)
Accepting Mastercard, Visa and American Express
Cheque/Money Order
Made payable to “Garvan Research Foundation – LYS” and free postal to
Love Your Sister
c/o Garvan Research Foundation
Reply Paid 68593
DARLINGHURST NSW 2010
Direct Deposit
BSB: 082057
Account: 131172929
Garvan Research Foundation – Love Your Sister account
*Please use your name as ID for this deposit.
If you require a receipt please email foundation@garvan.org.au with the following:
- confirmation of donor name
- postal address
- donation amount
- date of donation
All donations $2 and over are fully tax deductible
And finally…
Possibly the cutest ‘getting to know social media because I have to, then realising I love this shit’ video I think I’ve ever seen <3