Spotlight on Volunteer Pennie Callaghan
This week is Volunteer week. The Snowdome Foundation would not exist without the support of so many generous individuals and organisations that give up their time and valuable resources to help us achieve our mission. We would like to shine a spotlight on a few of our amazing volunteers over the week. We asked all our volunteers three questions.
First off is Pennie Callaghan.
Q.1. How did you become connected to Snowdome?
A. I became connected to Snowdome Foundation through my parents, Bruce and Christine Wilson. My parents were looking for a charity to support through our family foundation and through conversations with Mum’s doctor, David Westerman, as well as the Tandy’s, we were told about the amazing work that Snowdome do in the blood cancer space. My mum had non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and so this was very close to us and made perfect sense to support a group with a mission to accelerate next-generation treatments for Australian blood cancer patients.
Q.2. Why do you donate so much of your time and resources to Snowdome?
A. My mum was one of the fortunate ones to receive groundbreaking treatment (at that time), via a stem cell transplant, and knowing that not all patients either have access to or can afford such treatments, my parents gifted a substantial amount to establish a state of the art centre for lymphoma genomics testing Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre . At this point, I became more involved in Snowdome and joined the Working Committee for the Wilson Centre. In addition, and after meeting the incredible team involved, I also decided to help out on the Bloody Good Dinner Committee. Sadly my mum passed away just over a year ago now, so I feel it a privilege to continue this legacy work she put in place.
Q3. What do you love most about being part of the Snowdome family?
A. The Snowdome Foundation and team around them are an amazingly good group of people who are all basically giving their time and efforts voluntarily. It is a pleasure to work alongside these passionate people in the hope that we can help people affected with blood cancer.