Oh what a night!
We are not quite sure where to start… It was the most fabulous night. A huge success. Surrounded by wonderful, giving, stunning humans! all there to support Rafiki Mwema.. (ok, ok, I know a lot of people were there just for Constance but we can pretend)
Thank you to my Rafiki Board Members and my squad for helping with everything leading up to the night. There sure was a lot to do.
Thank you to the very talented Heidi Flumm for taking the majority of these photos
We had a fantastic merchandise table that was going gang busters all night. Thanks for all of those people who purchased and for the team for manning the table all night.
Our board member and web helper, Victoria Dyte with her husband Colin from Drawn Upon who is the genius behind our new branding!
Thanks Babs and Em for all of the help!
We even had the boss on the job! Thanks, Anne Marie and to our wonderful helper Sophie.
Thank you to Rafikis friend Katie and our Board Member & epic rapper – Jandy.
Best of friends. working side by side for over 20 years.
We had some fantastic entertainment for the evening. Including Ginger Spin Ninja, Our DJ Ali May, Black Tie Photobooths (huge hit – here is the proof!) Our live painting was done by !Nitsua.
Of course we can’t mention these people without mentioning the awesome team at the Byron at Byron for the room hire they donated to us and the fantastic rate they gave us for the food and drinks package. Everyone was very well looked after. You just needed to take one look around the room to see that 😉
I’m sure they were laughing at something I said.
Speeches started and to say I was nervous is a massive understatement. I don’t do public speaking, or crowds, or functions or hardly leave the house for that matter, so all of these things combined terrified me. But it’s fair to say I LOVE Rafiki so I would do anything to raise awareness for them.
I started the speech by sharing a video with everyone that the children wanted to make. You can see this here.
Everyone loved the message from our kids. They were so excited to hear that people were all coming together to celebrate THEM!
Shock Horror I was crying. Always do. My Baby Lovisa and My Rafiki Babies = Mama Cries.
Then it was time for my fabulous ambassadors to get up there and talk. They were THRILLED about it. They love public speaking just as much as I do but just like me, they would do anything for Rafiki.
Sarah, Chantelle aka Fat Mum Slim & Rebel aka Rebel without a Pause. You wouldn’t know they were nervous would you?
Next up it was the boss Anne Marie. She is never nervous and could talk under water. I love everything about her. Shhhh don’t tell her.
Me and Constance listening to Anne Marie go on.. and on…. and on.. and on 😉
After Anne Marie finished her talk I asked her to head back into the Crowd as I had a surprise for her. Some children wanted to give her a message… She was slightly shocked.
Yep, tears all around.
Then it was time for Queen Constance to talk. This was her first appearance anywhere, ever. We feel very honoured that she came to our event to help us promote Rafiki and so we could celebrate her and all she has done for us.
I know that she was nervous but she did the most fabulous job and everyone was hanging on every word. Except those drunk ladies down the back… (INSIDE VOICE, GIRLS!)
Bill joined her to make her feel more comfortable. King Bill, it was a pleasure meeting you.
Then, because obviously I had not snotted enough, Constance thought that she would surprise us with a TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLAR cheque to go towards building the King’s Castle! Look at the state of Anne Marie and I.
Constance has written a book and $1 from every book she sells is going towards the Kings Castle. This woman and her army are going to build our entire Rafiki village and we could not be happier.
oh man, Sarah. you need to go home.
Time for our duet.
Hey Constance, Thanks for the $20K here are some flowers! Didn’t quite seem enough but we had to say we love you!
and for Rebel as well!
and Claire, you sneaky bugger. YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD HIDE. This whole event was her idea.. she organised everything and she thought she was going to stay out of the spot light. HAHA GOTCHA. Anne Marie presenting her with flowers. We do love you, Claire.
Chantelle, Claire, Rebel, Constance & Sarah.
Now it’s time to relax a little!
After a little bit of dancing and Black Tie photo booth action…
…It was time to draw the raffle! Thank you so much to everyone who sold and bought the tickets. Thank you to all of the business and generous souls who donated towards this raffle. We had SO many fantastic prizes!
Thanks to our amazing helpers!! Constance, Our Rafiki Helper & long time supporter Chantel and hilariousness in the form of a human >> Celeste.
A+++ Rafiki ticket sellers!
So many winners!
Oh Celeste, you make me laugh…
Jemma was the lucky winner of the Little Paper Lane Goodie Bag and the All things Bright and Beautiful Candle.. was there anything else, Jemma? Well done you!
It’s so weird to see me crying. again.
The most amazing artist, Cat Lee donated this extraordinary painting of our baby Joy to our event. She named it Malkia Mtoto (Little Queen) we put it up for auction and in no time we were at $1600.. there was a bidding war but the loving husband of Queen Constance (Bill) purchased this as a surprise for his wife. We are so grateful for the never ending support from you guys.
Then it was time to auction of !Nitsua‘s fantastic painting he did of an African Cat. Austin painted this from start to finish at our event and then it was auction to a very generous couple for $3000!!!
Man, I am exhausted after reliving that night via this post.
If you were there I would love to hear if you had a great time? Comment below or email me! It was the most fantastic night with so many wonderful supporters.
We wanted to let you all know exactly what we raised at the event! It has taken me a while to organise everything and pay all the bills. Here we go with our grand total..
DRUM ROLL….
$14,699.27 Profit made from Raffle Tickets, Merchandise and Event Ticket Sales!
$20,000.00 from Queen Constance for our Kings Castle!
Monthly sponsors committed to pay $465 a month to Rafiki Mwema. These payments are an assortment of the monthly Outreach program sponsorship and our child sponsorship.
Obviously the $20K will go into a bank account for when we can build the Kings Castle but the $14,699.27 will be put to use right away with our excess expenditure we have had at our projects this month.
We have had huge excess as our borehole pump has broken at the farm and you can see by the pictures of where we have been collecting water from at the moment.
Also you can see photos of the pump being taken out to be repaired. These are huge costs so this money will be put straight to the outstanding bills we have so we cannot thank you enough. The perfect timing for this money.
Thank you to everyone, whether you came to our event, or not. Thank you for reading this far, thank you for supporting us, thanks for your online love.
A message from Anne Marie:
“What an amazing night with the biggest buzz ever. I cannot begin to thank just about everyone, from every single person that clicked like on our facebook page, those who bought tickets and had a ball on the night, those who sponsored our work and of course every single person from our board that worked their socks off to make the night look like it just happened. Sarah is a legend and her wonderful lovely caring legend army are the best! Claire, Constance, Rebel, Chantelle, Celeste – every person that used their amazing followers to let them know all we do – thank you again. Constance you rock all our worlds – not to mention our bank accounts!!!!
I’d also like to mention the unsung heros (maybe our men folk!) who help out and step up to let us do the things that make this charity outstanding.
Every single person that brings hope and light in moments of darkness – you are all amazing xxxx”
