ALMOST 100 households got ready to go no-where and not attend the annual gala event for Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute.
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While the total amount raised is still being tallied, FECRI's event organisers were thrilled with the non-turnout for the Un-Gala ball at the weekend.
The UnGala event follows a highly successful wine auction in July, raising $10,000, with all wines from across the region sold for almost the combined retail listing.
FECRI, the only cancer research program in regional Australia, receives relies entirely on community support and philanthropy. The team's usual fundraising events were blocked this year, promoting pandemic pivots but they were still keen to find a way to host the ball.
Participants could dress up, or not, or bling up their comfy trackies and were encouraged to order takeaway to support Ballarat small business for the UnGala night. Guests were asked to donate however much they could to support the work in cancer research.
The evening opened with a welcome from FECRI honourary director George Kannourakis, alone in a ball room, was followed with a different take on a silent auction and featured a night of dancing on the living room floor to Sweat Dreams DJs.
FECRI's work has continued through the pandemic in what Professor Kannourakis said was deemed vital work because cancer did not stop in lockdowns.
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The annual Ballarat Cycle Classic, which rolled out weeks before restrictions, raised $300,000 to fully launch a new breast cancer research project. This program has already produced internationally published findings for women who develop aggressive triple-negative breast cancers.
Amid the pandemic, expansion upgrades to FECRI's tissue bank were complete to house an extra 4,500 tissue samples and take the tissue bank capacity to more than 23,000 tissue and blood samples on hand for researchers' work.
More details: fecri.org.au.
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