Australia’s home-grown burger brand Grill’d has announced a national takeover of its 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 contribution to keeping our communities safe. 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.”
Key stats:
- Surf Life Saving Australia: On average, surf lifesavers 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.
- National Fire Brigades: Over 188,500 volunteer firefighters protect 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.
- Country Fire Authority Victoria: Over 52,000 volunteers, 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.
This month, the Grill’d’s Local Matters program will be dedicated to supporting organisations that help save lives and make our summer safe. Guests can contribute by heading to a 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’s commitment to support local communities and has been in place since 2011.
Grill’d Founder and Managing Director Simon Crowe says: “Through fires, floods and hardships these organisations brave heroes really step up and give 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. So, we ask all Grill’d guests, allocate that Local Matters token to the heroes that mean the most to you.”
Surf Life Saving Australia Chief Operating Officer, Brisbane, John Brennan OAM says: “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.”
St John Ambulance Australia CEO Brendan Maher says: “Our 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.”
The National Volunteer Fire Brigades says: 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, seven days a week, all year round, attending a range of incidents from bush and grass fires, to house and structure fires, 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.”
Every month, each Grill’d restaurant donates $500 back to grassroots organisations in the community through its Local Matters program. Now in its 11th 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 has donated over $6.5M to over 30K community groups.
For more information, visit grilld.com.au/localmatters.
