Grill’d – Australia’s favourite home-grown burger brand – has announced a national volunteer charity takeover of their Local Matters fundraising program for the month of January.
Grill’d will donate $80,000 across key hero partners; Surf Life Saving Australia, St John Ambulance Australia and state-based fire brigades to say a massive thank you for all their contributions to keeping our communities safe.
Simon Crowe, Grill’d founder and managing director, said that through fires, floods and hardships, these organisations’ brave heroes have really stepped up and have given it their all.
“Given our commitment to supporting local communities through Local Matters, this is a very special takeover for us as a business and all the Grill’d employees across Australia.
“We ask all Grill’d guests to allocate that Local Matters token to the heroes that mean the most to you,” Mr Crowe said.
The donations will help with vital training and equipment to local first aiders, firies and surf lifesavers.
There are over 350,000 brave volunteers across Australia that always give up their time to keep us safe, so it’s now time to return the favour.
On average, surf lifesavers from Surf Life Saving Australia rescue almost 10,500 people each year, which equates to around 30 people every day.
In 2021/22*, they performed more than 1.3 million volunteer patrol hours to keep our beaches safe and undertook over 1.6 million preventative actions and provided first aid treatment to more than 58,000 individuals.
John Brennan OAM, Surf Life Saving Australia Chief Operating Officer in Brisbane, said: “We’re extremely proud of the work our volunteer surf lifesavers do, not just to keep people safer on our beaches, but also beyond the coastline, as we’ve seen particularly in the last twelve months through flood rescue and recovery efforts in many parts of the country.
“We want all Australians to understand the incredible service volunteer surf lifesavers provide for the community and, in turn, inspire others to support the cause – whether that’s through volunteering their time, donating money, sharing our water safety messages, and now allocating their Local Matters tokens to Surf Life Saving at Grill’d restaurants around the country.”
Over 188,500 volunteer firefighters with the National Fire Brigades protect the outer metro and regional Australia.
Volunteer Fire & Rescue Services Association of WA: There are 2,788 Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service members from 101 brigades throughout Western Australia who gave over 624,000 hours to the communities in which they live and work.
Over 52,000 volunteers of the Country Fire Authority Victoria are committed to protecting lives and property across Victoria.
On average, there are 58,800 brigade turnouts attending to 31,750 incidents across the state, including house fires, bush and grass fires and road accidents.
The National Volunteer Fire Brigades said: “Our volunteer firefighters put their own lives at risk to protect our local communities.
“They are on call, ready to respond to emergencies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round, attending a range of incidents from bush and grassfires to house and structure fires and road accidents and assisting at other events like floods, storms and searches so the Grill’d national takeover is an important initiative to support these volunteers.”
St John Ambulance Australia CEO Brendan Maher said that their volunteers are the lifeblood of our organisation.
“We are very proud of the service they provide in communities all over the country. St John is thrilled to be a part of the Grill’d Local Matters program, which will support the lifesaving work of our incredible volunteers this summer.”
During January, Grill’d guests can contribute by simply heading in-restaurant and allocating their Local Matters token (from each burger purchase) to vote for their chosen organisation.
At the end of the month, Grill’d will count votes towards a national tally and provide a financial allocation to each group.
Local Matters is an integral part of Grill’d that is committed to supporting local communities and has been in place since 2011.
Every month, each Grill’d restaurant donates $500 back to grassroots organisations in the community through their Local Matters program.
Now in its eleventh year, Local Matters connects restaurants to local groups and is a way of giving back to the communities in which Grill’d operates.
To date, Grill’d have donated over $6.5 million to over 30,000 community groups.
To find out more, visit grilld.com.au/localmatters.
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