Saddle Up for Olivia’s Race Day and Support the Mater Foundation
Brisbane Racing Club is proud to host the next Olivia’s Race Day in support of the Mater Foundation on Saturday 25 March at Brisbane’s home of racing, Eagle Farm.
This is the third year that BRC has hosted this dedicated race day, which is in memory of Olivia Clark, who lost her struggle for life in 2001 after being born prematurely at the Mater Mothers’ Hospital, weighing only 499 grams.
The inaugural Olivia’s Race Day in 2021 at Doomben Racecourse raised $163,000 and last year’s event, also at Doomben, surpassed that figure, raising $257,000.
Fundraising in Olivia’s memory began two years after her death when her mother Maria Clark, with help from friends, organised a small Olivia’s Lunch to benefit the Mater Mothers’ Neonatal Critical Care Unit (NCCU) where Olivia was cared for. Maria and husband Brett’s other two daughters, Chelsea (now 25) and Maddy (21), were also born prematurely and spent time in the NCCU.
“It started as a healing process for our family, that first fundraising lunch,” Maria said. “We gained such incredible support and loyalty from our community of friends and their communities that it just grew and grew from there.”
Over 16 years, Olivia’s Lunch was held annually and raised more than $1 million for the Mater Foundation to support specialist neonatal equipment and scientific research. In 2021, Maria, close friend Luen Pearce and the fundraising team expanded the event to a dedicated race day.
“We had attended a race day fundraiser for a local school a few years ago,” Maria said. “That’s where the idea came about, to mix it up and move Olivia’s Lunch to a race day where it’s a full day of entertainment and, rather than being a girls’ lunch, it’s something for mixed groups of people.
“A day at the races is so much fun and something I grew up with. My mum and her two sisters used to go to the track with my grandfather. They were a Brisbane family who would get dressed up and go to the races and mum would always talk fondly about it.
“We’re very excited to have Olivia’s Race Day this year at Eagle Farm and our lunch in the St Leger Marquee. It’s a big, beautiful space trackside which can accommodate lots of people in the one location, so we’re thrilled.”
Marquee guests will enjoy a three-course lunch with fine wines, have the opportunity to enter a Fashions on the Field competition, bid for donated auction items, including a race day experience donated by the BRC Foundation, and to purchase raffle tickets to win a Canturi diamond and precious gemstone necklace.
As with the previous two BRC-hosted race days, monies raised for the Mater Foundation will go towards Catherine’s House, a perinatal mental health and wellbeing service for mothers, babies and families at the Mater’s South Brisbane campus, set to open in a few weeks.
Find out more about Olivia’s Race Day and purchase tickets to the St Leger Marquee lunch here.
Brisbane Racing Club is a not-for-profit organisation committed to supporting the community, charity organisations and local groups across Queensland through fundraising, donations, community partnerships and event and promotional support. The BRC Foundation was established in November 2018 as a formal initiative for community contributions and last year the Foundation directly donated to more than 80 charities and community groups.
ENDS
For all media enquiries:
Keilee Perren
Brisbane Racing Club
Public Relations Executive
P: 0428 789 620
E: kperren@brc.com.au