Harshani Wickramasinghe - Annual Appeal Volunteer

February 08 2012

If you ask 20 year old Auckland University student Harshani Wickramasinghe what she likes to do she will immediately tell you she loves to dance, get good grades, party and travel!

Apart from working hard and having fun Harshani also loves volunteering for the Heart Foundation and once a year she gathers up as many friends as she can and heads to Queen Street in Auckland to collect as part of our Annual Appeal.

Harshani says that persuading friends isn’t difficult as they all agree that this is something important.

Like so many people in New Zealand Heart Disease has affected people they love and they want to let people know it doesn’t have to be that way, she says “I just wanted to give something back to the community. Not only that, I have many people in my family who has suffered some type of heart disease, which really opened my mind and influenced me to be a volunteer.”

The other reason finding friends to join her hasn’t been hard is that they have so much fun. She says, “I just text or Facebook people letting them know the appeal is coming up. I let them know what kind of things happen on the day, when is it, what we are raising money for and the reasons behind the appeal. Usually all my friends are pretty interested in things like this as they also get to give something back to the community themselves and have fun while doing it.”

Harshani and her friends have also been very successful. Last year they raised close to $7,000 and will be going hard out to beat that on Friday 17 February this year.

Harshani has a simple message for New Zealanders, “we are fundraising for such a good cause and asking them if they will be kind enough even to donate whatever they can afford as everything counts at the end. Think about it…if every New Zealander gave 10 cents each we could fundraise $443,713.50!”

So if you are out on Queen Street next Friday and you meet Harshani and her friends, stop and have a chat about dancing, partying, travelling or how the Heart Foundation is working to stop New Zealanders dying prematurely of Heart Disease.

Better still come and join Harshani and over 2,000 other volunteers on the day! 17 February is the day when across New Zealand our brilliant team of staff and volunteers will take to the street to raise money for the Foundation.

Come and be part of the team - volunteer for the Annual Appeal now