For Ray White Helensburgh Principal Simon Beaufils, the devastation of brain cancer became terrifyingly real as he saw his good mate and Channel Nine NRL boss Matt Calandar suffer with the disease.
“Matt was a really good friend of mine,” said Mr Beaufils this week, who recalls watching his friend pass away in 2017 as seeing the ‘coal face’ of the illness.
It is with this personal background that Mr Beaufils and his team of thirteen at Ray White Helensburgh have made the Beanie for Brain Cancer appeal a major event on their calendar each year.
“This is the big week,” says Mr Beaufils, referring to the NRL Round 19 (25th-29th of July) the Beanie weekend – where fans are encouraged to wear an official Mark Hughes Foundation Beanie for Brain Cancer to the game. Indeed, Mr Beaufils wife will be at three games in two states selling beanies at football venues this week.
People in the Helensburgh region can buy theirs from Ray White’s office – and even those looking to get stock to sell at their school, cafe or office can access stock from the office.
“We’re just a small part of it,” said Mr Beaufils, but his team knows that each and every beanie that is sold makes a difference in the vital work of brain cancer research, a cancer which has remained devastatingly quick acting.
It’s worth going over the facts; more kids die from brain cancer than any other disease, while prostate cancer has a 35 per cent survival rate, and breast cancer an 18 per cent survival rate, brain cancer has remained stagnant at 2 per cent for the last 30 years.
More research means more money – and yes, while a $25 beanie may seem like a drop in the ocean as far as funds go, with enough drops an ocean of research can be conducted and families such as that of young Matt Calandar can be spared from tragedy.
