A massive pat on the back to ACT emergency services workers and Love Your Sister volunteers who laboured long into the night on Wednesday picking up all those coins from the wonderful Big Heart Project
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And by our calculations, there were more than six million five cent pieces to pick up. Just on 6,034,160 coins, to be exact. A bit tougher than scrambling for the shrapnel that's fallen behind the couch.
Industrial vacuum cleaners, shovels and good, old-fashioned brooms were used by the LYS volunteers as well as police, fire brigade, State Emergency Service, ACT ambulance service, and rural fire brigade personnel to collect and load the coins into drums.
The security firm Prosegur is counting the coins with help from as many as 15 volunteers from Bendigo Bank. It's expected to take a couple of weeks.
Love Your Sister says a total of $2.2 million was raised by Connie Johnson's Big Heart Project; the vast majority of donations made online and in Bendigo Bank branches around Australia and New Zealand.
That was more than double what Canberra mum Connie, and her brother, actor Samuel Johnson, had hoped to raise, with the original target $1 million.
The big heart itself, on the Lyneham netball courts, had $301,708 worth of five cent pieces.
The Mint had earlier in the day supplied and delivered 4.3 million five cent pieces or $215,000 in 24 drums, weighing 11.2 tonnes.
The coins supplied by the mint represented a portion of online donations. They were returned to the mint.
That means about $86,708 worth of five cent pieces were donated to the heart just on the day. Mighty fine effort.
Love Your Sister says it also sold between $70,000 and $80,000 worth of merchandise on the day.
The not-for-profit organisation donates everything it raises to cancer research.
The proceeds from the Big Heart Project will go partly to the Garvan Institute's Connie Johnson Breast Cancer Research Laboratory, focusing particularly on breast cancer research.
Funds will also go to other cancer research projects.
Job well done.
* Donations can still be made to the effort through Bendigo Bank:
Account name Love your Sister Inc.
BSB 633 000
Account Number 156977449
Reference Donor name
Alternatively, tax-deductible donations can be made via the Garvan Institute's website -
https://www.giving.garvan.org.au/makeadonation.
