What better way to celebrate our anniversary than giving away $4,000 to a business that will use it to make the world a better place? Last Thursday we did just this! We called on Novocastrians to join us at The Lock Up arts space to recognise awesome business initiatives and give away stacks of cash.

Guests and board members wined, dined and donated. They listened to the inspiring stories of four previous Awesome Newcastle Winners, watched Steve Pasvolsky’s Awesome Newcastle Film (see below) all while The Village of Useful darlings Linda, Jorgia and Emma pranced through the crowd with Awesome Newcastle bags wide open, ripe for the cash.

MC Glen Hawke introduced the four previous Awesome Newcastle champions. Along with the winner of the night, we heard amazing narratives from Kim Oakhill of Helpful Love, Joel Pilgrim of OneWave who uses the beach and surf to raise mental health awareness and Stephen Fewson who makes Survival Candles for the homeless.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE

Kate O’Donoghue from Frontline Yoga took home $4,340 in cold hard no-strings-attached cash!

Earlier this year Kate was awarded $1,000 in cash from Awesome Newcastle. The businesswoman and mum who runs Sprout and Bean Yoga also leads free yoga classes for individuals who work on the frontline. Her Pozible Campaign defines frontline workers as “police, paramedics, firefighters and defence personnel, or people within our community who show up for work at 3am, on Christmas morning or the worst moments of a person’s life.

Kate has learned that yoga is an incredibly useful tool for those living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). According to her Frontline Yoga website, “the aim of her business is to foster community and support, develop mental and physical strength, build resilience, a sense of peace and tools for self-regulation in order to optimise the processing of occupational stressors.”

With the money she’s just received, she plans on training 100 Frontline Yoga teachers to offer free classes across Australia! How awesome! Congratulations, Frontline Yoga Inc for your awesome win, again!

Giving away cash is great, but we couldn’t have had a proper party without the help of several special peeps. We want to give a huge shout out to our awesome sponsors who kept us hydrated (Murray’s Brewing and Wine Selectors), provided the paint for our awesome massive chalkboard (Inspirations Paint) and kept the sounds sweet (Scion Audio).

GMRX Media filmed the night away, and Bao Brothers trucked in finger-licking good Taiwanese street food.

Truly, awesome times were had by all.