Having a chuckle to help cancer charity

Locally Grown Funnies is holding a “Chuckles for Charity” event on November 29 at Clairvaux Primary School to help raise money for blood cancer charity UR the Cure.

Local comedians Jake Budge, Scott Angove, Tosh Walker, Stevie Stix, Luke Massey and Paul Moore will be performing, with Tim Young acting as MC.

Pamela Wallasvaara founded UR the Cure after doctors were unable to find a stem cell match for her to have a transplant and cure her lymphoma.

Ms Wallasvaara was eventually forced to have a riskier transplant using donated cord blood. She fortunately was still able to overcome the cancer and has been remission since 2012.

Much of Ms Wallasvaara’s struggle to find a match was because her Lebanese heritage made it difficult to find someone who was a match.

This is because there is a lack of ethnic diversity on the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

People are more likely to find a match with someone the same ethnic or indigenous heritage as themselves, although only 30 per cent in need of stem cell or bone marrow transplants can find matches within their family.

After her own battle Ms Wallasvaara, heard of many other people who were unable to find a match because of their ethnicity.

Ms Wallasvaara decided to try and change this by starting UR the Cure and promoting people of ethnic minorities to join the registry and potentially save someone’s life.

The group, which is an official partner of the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry looks to both advocate and educate.

It looks to make people more aware of the issue through social media, workplace education, running and supporting donor drives and various events at schools and universities; and to

support other events that educate people on bone marrow and stem cell transplants.

At moment, it is particularly at need of young males aged between 18 and 30 from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Donating stem cells is far simpler now as the cells can often be taken from the blood, in much the same way a blood donation would.

Tickets for Chuckles for Charity are $25, with food and drink available on the night.

The event will begin at 7.30pm.

Tickets can be purchased from trybooking.com/567410.