JUST back from the African bush, Masterchef cook Julie Goodwin says her stint on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here was a rewarding experience and a chance to raise awareness for an important cause, Motor Neurone Disease.
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While she didn’t win and get to donate the grand prize of $100,000, she is happy to have raised awareness for her chosen charity, the Cure for MND Foundation.
Julie spent five weeks in South Africa and three and half weeks in front of the cameras in the bush camp in the spectacular Blyde River Canyon near Kruger National Park where the reality TV series was filmed for Channel 10.
Together with cricketer Freddie Flintoff, she entered the camp as an intruder on Episode 12, and it was Freddie who eventually went on to win the show being the last to be voted off.
Julie said she got on well with all her fellow celebrities and the real challenge was to remain occupied in the long downtime between the action.
“Each of the contestants had their jobs by the time Freddie and I arrived and I didn’t want to stand on anyone’s toes, but they all were happy for me to do the cooking and I really enjoyed that,” she said.
They all got really close and have kept in contact since filming ended, touching base with each other over the phone or via email.
She won’t know how much money her SMS voters raised for her charity but equally important was raising awareness about MND.
She lost an uncle to the disease and her and husband Mick became close with Cure for MND Foundation founder Dr Ian Davis having done other work for the campaign.
“I heard the foundation’s website activity increased something like seven fold during the show and helping to get the message across was great,” she said.
Her adopted home of Narooma has a number of people who have been affected by MND, including Matt Ratcliffe whose family continues to raise funds, while a book about Cheryl Fong’s life and experience with MND was also recently published.
Julie, the first winner of the MasterChef Australia, is back busy with her cooking school up in Gosford where she lives.
She said she adjusted to being back in civilization after Africa by cooking and cooking some more.
Her parents, Marlene and Tony Hunt, live in Dalmeny near Narooma and she, Mick and the kids plan on being back at their own Dalmeny holiday home for a few days over the Easter break.
In the meantime, she encouraged everyone to find out more about MND and even make a donation to www.curemnd.org.au
About Cure for MND
The Cure for MND foundation is a 100 per cent not-for-profit foundation established in 2014. We aim to raise the profile of Motor Neurone Disease within Australia and abroad in the hopes that increased awareness may lead to not only better care for those affected by the disease, but also increased funding for vital research into finding a cure.
To Cure: The name of our foundation sums it up. We at the Cure For MND foundation are passionate about funding the best and brightest MND research within Australia with the aim of expediting discoveries of potential treatments for MND sufferers, but ultimately a cure. We do this in the hopes of one day living in a world free from MND.
Until a medical “cure” is found, it is our belief that technology can be a form of “cure” for those affected by MND. In this regards, we are passionate about providing Assistive and Augmentative Communication (AAC) devices, such as Eye Gaze technology, to patients who have lost the ability to interact with the world and communicate. In these people, although MND has robbed them of the use of their hands to type and their speech to communicate, we believe that by providing this vital equipment to those affected, we can allow these people to resume a productive and fulfilling life within the wider community.
The foundation will continue to push MND into the spotlight in the hopes that by increasing the public profile of Motor Neurone Disease within the Australian and wider communities, governments and pharmaceutical companies will take up the fight and join us in a quest for viable treatments, and an ultimate cure. “Without You We Won’t Find A Cure!”
