Australian stars from the field of cricket, Olympics and football will sleep out at the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) to raise funds for the Chappell Foundation. It will be second edition of the Sports Stars Sleepout 2020 which will be organised at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday.
The Chappell Foundation raises funds to give to those who provide refuge, nourishment and a better future for thousands of young Australians without a roof over their heads each night, according to their official website. The last edition saw former Australia captain and ex-India coach Greg Chappell raise $56,000 by hosting the Sports Stars Sleepout last year.
This year Mitchell Starc, Alyssa Healy, women’s football star Julie Murray, Olympics swimming gold medallist Bronte Campbell and Paralympics great Louise Sauvage will join the initiative will be among 30 Australia stars to sleepout for the noble cause at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
“On Monday August 5, The Chappell Foundation has organised a ‘Sports Stars Sleepout’ at the SCG to focus public attention on the size of Australia’s youth homelessness problem and to raise funds to help alleviate its impact,” Chappell said ahead of ‘Homelessness Week 2019’, which begins next Sunday.
“For a country as affluent as ours, to have over 116,000 homeless people (including 40,000 under 25) is unacceptable. Very few people choose to be homeless. It’s a product of broken homes, broken marriages, broken people. A lot of these people just fall through the gaps, and we’d like to help close some of those gaps.”
“We’ve been blown away by the number of past players who have put their hands up to be part of it,” Chappell said. “It’s a fantastic array of sports and sportspeople across the spectrum.
This year the fund raiser will be even more important as a lot of people are already suffering due to the novel coronavirus pandemic situation.