I recently spent a chilly morning at Melbourne University, shooting headshots for Febfast (more below). The subject for this shoot was the delightful Vanessa, who has participated in FebFast for two years running and recently completed her thesis on how FebFast impacted the longer term alcohol consumption of participants. These are some of my favourite images from the shoot.
“So”, you ask, “what’s FebFast all about?” Well, a couple of years ago, I caught up with a friend of mine – Fiona Healy. She’s one of those passionate people who dream large and turn their dreams into reality.
Over a sandwich, she told me that she had plans to start a charitable institution, and blurted out in breathless succession all her ideas and plans. This was August or September, from memory, and she was planning to launch the charity in October. Clearly this was an ambitious timeline, so I offered to help with the planning and commerical side, because that’s what I do career wise. I’ve been involved ever since.
FebFast has now been running for two years and we have raised more that AUS $680,000 to assist young people with drug and alcohol dependency issues. The concept is that people forego alcohol for a month, which benefits them directly, and then they get friends and family to sponsor them, which helps other people. Win win!
It has been a fascinating journey. I have watched FebFast grow and succeed (on a shoestring), in a challenging not-for-profit environment. I am extremely proud to have helped and to have seen Fiona succeed in such an ambitious endeavour.
My thanks to both Vanessa and Fiona S, who assisted in the freezing cold and refused both coffeee and muffins (go figure).