Shades of pink link communities

By Meg Kennedy

The upcoming ‘Pink Up Ballan’ event is a step closer to becoming a reality, with the second general meeting held earlier this month.
Twenty Ballan and surrounding district residents gathered in-person at Ballan Community House on Wednesday, 9 July, with even more watching online via Facebook to discuss and plan the event, set to be held in October.
‘Pink Up Your Town’ is an initiative of the McGrath Foundation to use the month of October to Pink Up towns around Australia, in order to raise funds for and awareness of the foundation’s work in providing breast care nurses to patients.
As well as ‘pinking-up’ the town itself, events are set to be held in Ballan throughout October, concluding with a Pink Mayoral Ball at St Anne’s Winery on Friday, 1 November.
Local businesses and organisations are also getting heavily involved with the project, with the Ballan Commercial Hotel, Ballan and District CWA, Mt Egerton Hall, Springfield’s Garage and Scruffy Fella to hold events or make active donations leading up to and throughout the event.
Pink Up Ballan Co-ordinator Kevin Harper said he is “encouraged and overwhelmed by the level of support and interest shown so far.”
“Breast cancer has touched many in our community…this is an event for everyone to be involved with,” he said.
“From kinder to the schools, service groups, craft groups and local businesses, even the individual family unit, we can work together to put Ballan on the map for another good reason.”
The next community meeting is at the Ballan Community House, 6:30pm on Wednesday 17 July. All are welcome to attend, and videos of the first two community meetings are available to view on the ‘Pink Up Ballan’ Facebook page.
For more information, contact [email protected] or leave a message on 8373 4744 option 8.