It's been 10 years since local property group Highland started a journey of raising funds for the Sydney Children's Hospital Foundation at their bi-annual Blue Lunch fundraising event, and now the event is back, bigger than ever for their milestone anniversary. The Blue Lunch, which is to take place on the 24th of October at Sydney Town Hall, has been a long-standing charity commitment for the property group who have raised over $2million for the foundation in that time. A local, community-centric business at its core, Highland have built a business with deep seated roots in the Sutherland Shire, using their expansive reach and networks that have been built over the last 17 years, to support this worthy cause. Now with a connection to father and son property tycoons Bill and David Malouf as well as the Kallin legacy's Angela, Jenna and Kristen Kallin extending their reach into the East and Inner West suburbs of Sydney, the Blue Lunch is set to hit more communities and help children in these communities' who are facing some of life's toughest challenges.
The Blue Lunch has been a mainstay in the Sutherland Shire since its inception in 2014, having been held at local venues Sealevel and Doltone House in Sylvania throughout its tenure. Highland CEO David Highland has been extremely humbled by the local support of the Highland network and their clients, who have shown up time and again for The Blue Lunch in the last 10 years: "at our heart we are a family business with long standing ties to our community. Having grown up in the Sutherland Shire and built the Highland brand with a group of like-minded, local property experts, it has been astounding to see the support our clients, our friends and families have been able to garner for the Sydney Children's Hospital over the last 10 years."
"Now as a father of four it is amazing to see how the $2million we have raised in that time has benefited the foundation and actually helped kids in specialised care." He continued: "this year The Blue Lunch is proudly raising funds for the Sydney Children's Hospital innovative Base of Skull Service (BOSS) that will be the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. To know that we have directly contributed to easing these families' burdens, if only slightly, is a great achievement for our group."
Making it easier to perform base of skull operations, particularly on small children, the BOSS service brings together specialised clinicians with advanced skills and training in rhinology, skull base and cystic fibrosis who can navigate non-invasive technology to access that part of the brain and operate.
This technology is already seeing fantastic results through the Sydney Royal Children's Hospital with 8-year-old Issac Lee who had already been through two major brain surgeries that included removing part of the base of his skull to attempt to reduce the size of a brain tumour, doctors found when he was only 5 years old. On the third attempt, specialists at the hospital recommended the BOSS method, which has mostly been performed on adults and still poses certain risks to the patient, but doesn't require invasive brain surgery which is ideal for smaller patients. For Isacc and his family, this was an amazing success with little to no long-lasting side effects and allowed him to return to school and his life with little interruption.
It is stories like the above that Highland Head of Brand and Marketing Rebecca Mulder is extremely excited to support. "I was there for the first Blue Lunch and to see the good we have been able to achieve over the last 10 years has been absolutely astounding," she muses. "From a 180 person event at Sealevel in 2014 to 600 people in Sydney Town Hall next Thursday, it has been no small feat from our team to pull together this incredible event, but also our community and our supporters who continually show up for us, for what is truly a magical day."
The Blue Lunch is to be held at Sydney Town Hall, October 24th
