A recognition I’ll never forget

I am so excited to share that I won this year’s Victorian Local Legend category at the 7NEWS Community Achievement Awards Australia.

Thank you to Community Achievement Awards 7NEWS Australia Melbourne and the sponsors, including Regional Development Victoria State Government (Victorian Government) and Real Flame, for recognising my work with NICU Cheer in this way.

I’m so proud of NICU Cheer and how my hope to do one hamper, one time has snowballed into something so big and so beautiful, now supporting NICUs and Special Care Nurseries across 10 Victorian hospitals. I am so grateful for our amazing volunteers, the NICU Cheer Squad, who give their time to help me support NICU families across our great state. Thank you to my best friends Jason and Laura who have helped me from the very start and who accepted the award on my behalf as I was overseas for the awards presentation night.

I feel incredibly lucky that I love both my full-time job at the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre at La Trobe University, and that I can also still run NICU Cheer and contribute to the advocacy roles that have grown from it. Being able to do not one, but two, jobs I love really does feel like a dream come true. It brings a beautiful balance to the heartbreak and fear that come with Ashton’s medical complications and the many hospitalisations we face each year.

I never expected an award like this. I do this because I love supporting families going through a journey like ours, so having that work recognised means a great deal and I am very grateful.