Pause 4 Parkinson’s is a great opportunity to bring together friends, family and your local community. What starts out as a small gathering can often overflow into a huge swell of support from those around you as Sarah Welk found while organising her P4P event this year. Her family event quickly escalated into a jumping castle for kids, live music, sausage sizzle along with raffles, a silent and live auction, ALL of which was donated. In the end, Sarah and her family raised over $10,000 towards a cure for Parkinson’s. What a fantastic result from a generous community!

What Drives Your Commitment to find a cure for Parkinson’s?

Since my Dad was diagnosed it has been a cause very close to my whole family’s heart. My Dad was always a positive person that was always going something, I never thought anything’s could stop him. After a few years of having Parkinson’s, I have seen it take the drive for life out of both his eyes and his body. I would love nothing more than for my dad and all other Parkinson suffers to have control of their movement and emotions back.

Why Shake It Up Australia?

When I started looking into doing a fundraiser I came across “Shake It Up Australia’ and I actually didn’t feel I needed or wanted to look any further. The key things that really drew me to this foundation was the story behind the founder Clyde Campbell selfless approach to wanting to do something about it. Being an Australian company and also the fact that 100% of proceeds go directly to research and finding a cure.

Tell us what you are doing/did to Shake Things Up?

We actually started out thinking it would be a small gathering at my parents’ house with a few friends and family to not only raise funds but also create awareness around the Parkinson’s. Once we started talking to people about donating something for a raffle we were overwhelmed with the generosity and extent that people wanted to be involved and support this day. We ended up having over 80 people come and join in the fun which consisted of a jumping castle for kids, live music, sausage sizzle along with numerous raffles, silent auctions and live auctions throughout the day, of which ALL was donated.

Greatest Reward?

It was a very humbling experience by the number of people that came on the day and also wanted to help and donate. We were overwhelmed and managed to raise close to $7k just for the day!

Best advice for people looking to Shake It Up?

Don’t look any further than Shake it up, along with all the above I would also say they have a very supporting and personable approach to working with you to ensure everything goes how you want on the day.

When putting an event together ensure to make it a day for all ages, it definitely makes it fun for everyone!

I would highly recommend shake it up and really hope to work with them again in the future.