Onya, Carrie.
Earlier this year, Carrie Bickmore made headlines when she wore a beanie on stage while accepting her Gold Logie.
She used her speech as an opportunity to bring some much-needed attention to brain cancer, the disease which tragically claimed the life of her first husband Greg Lange.
Tonight on The Project, she announced that she would be doing more than just raising awareness, launching a new foundation to raise crucial funds for research into treatment options for sufferers of the illness.
“While I feel like I’ve done a lot of talking about it, actions speak louder than words,” she said.
“That’s why I’m launching a new foundation: Carrie’s Beanies for Brain Cancer.”
Watch the announcement here (post continues after video):
Bickmore’s aim is to raise $1 million for researchers, the people she believes will make a difference to fighting the disease.
As she explained, survival rates for brain cancer have not improved in three decades. One Australian is diagnosed with the disease every five hours and one dies every seven.
It also kills more people under forty than any other type of cancer and more kids than any other disease — yet it receives less than 5% of all government funding for cancer research.
Bickmore has decided to throw a bit of a party to celebrate the launch to the project and has managed to sign on some big names to help her.
The inaugural Brain Beats 2015 will take place in Melbourne on December 6 and feature musical performances by Ed Sheeran, Vance Joy, Bliss N Esso and Passenger. Oh, and Pete Hellier will be there too.
Bickmore says she was hunting for a way to answer the hundreds of emails she receives each week:
“Everyday I get emails from families whose loved ones have brain cancer, from foundations wanting me to help them and I thought, just how can I help everyone?
“If I set up a foundation, my aim is to raise as much money as I can. I am going to start with a million dollars and then I can give it to researchers, who are doing great work, and hopefully they can find some more effective treatments and maybe, maybe one day they can find a cure.”
You can donate go to Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer through her new website.