The Catherine Freeman Foundation

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Catherine Reports on the First Palm Island Children's stay at Cottage by the Sea
Jul 2, 10:04 AM

Thanks to the first partnership between Cottage by the Sea and the Catherine Freeman Foundation (CFF), early June saw 7 young girls from palm island visit Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula for a week long of new experiences for the girls designed to expand their worlds.

Aged between 10 and 12, Rochelle sibley, Michaela Robertson, Kearla Walsh, Toni Burns, Edna Coolburra, Tarena Charles and Brenda Aden, enjoyed the Cottage by the Sea who for 117 years have provided relief care and support to tens of thousands of children from all over Victoria.

The girls, along with their fellow Palm Island supervisors, Doris Watson and Faye Kerry, were accompanied the whole five hour plus flight from Palm to Melbourne by the Cottage by the Sea’s Damian Bennett.

”The experience has impacted on my life a great deal and I feel proud to have been part of a new and exciting partnership between Cottage by the Sea Charity and the Catherine Freeman Foundation,” he commented.

Cottage by the sea gives children the only holiday some children ever have as the girls visited local tourist attractions and participated in indoor and outdoor activities such as surfing.

Shaun Ward from the Cottage said,”Watching the girls take up a challenge of braving the cold elements of our cold winter, and put on a wetsuit, to experience surfing will be a memory they will never forget’.

Tony Featherstone, General Manager of the Cottage added, “It was heartening to see these wonderful children venturing into unfamiliar experiences with such enthusiasm and interest. To see the smiles on the faces and hear the excitement in their voices as they explored new horizons was just so pleasing for us all”.

The Catherine Freeman Foundation provided the Palm Island visitors with a visit to an airline to explore an aircraft, a newspaper, a melbourne AFL team, an AFL game at the G, the National Sports Museum, and a Melbourne Secondary College which is fundraising for CFF’s non-truancy program that is currently operating on Palm Island.

The highlight for me personally was having the girls as our very special guests at the launch of the CFF held in the committee room of the MCG on the 12th of june.
The girls were individually introduced and Kearla Walsh treated the small and intimate audience to a few words of thanks to the CFF.

The girls made the CFF launch truly special, and made the occasion that bit more special for me and all of those involved.