I started my pole dance journey in Australia and I’ve been following the bushfire crisis from afar with growing worry. Although I’ve found a home elsewhere, I’ll always remember a country with stunning landscapes, incredible wildlife and great times. 25 people dead, the damage to innocent people’s homes, nature and wildlife are a tragedy and I’ve had more than a cry in seeing burnt animals running from the flames and people escaping their homes. In the past few days, I have seen a lot of pole dancers chip in to help in the Australia with the bushfire crisis with donations and initiatives, so I thought I’d collate the ones I’ve seen in this post.
Disclaimer
#1: Of course there are hundreds of crises in the world we should care about. Of course people should be donating out of the goodness of their heart, not because they get something in return. But I believe the following initiatives are a good way to catch people’s attention, and are raising awareness apart from raising money. So I’m not going to get too political in this case, because I could write a whole paper about what people choose to donate to and why.
#2: These are only some of the initiatives I was able to find through word of mouth, my timeline and research. Would love to include more if I’ve missed out on anything so please comment or email me if you have anything cool and pole related going on to raise money for Australia!
Polewear Brands
Creatures of XIX and Club Hella Heels
One of the most famous and loved polewear and shoe brands are donating all the profits from their polewear and shoe sales to New South Wales Rural Fire Service and to Wires Wildlife Rescue until Midnight AEST this Friday. More info in the Instagram post below. Shop Creatures and Club Hella Heels here and here.
Playful Cat Polewear
Aussie brand Playful Cat are also donating their profits to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and to Wires Wildlife Rescue for the next couple of weeks. Shop their polewear here.
Rad Polewear
RAD polewear are donating 100 per cent of the profits from their sales during the weekend to the Australian Red Cross to help relieve those affected by the catastrophic bushfires in Australia. Shop their outfits here.
Genie and Jade Tanks
Etsy store Genie and Jade was born to combine the founder Kristen Maria’s passions of pole dance and graphic design. She is now selling a lovely tank top she designed herself, donating all profits got to WIRES Auatrailia Wildlife Rescue – about $8-10 per shirt plus if anyone donates more. This initiative ends on the 26th of January – find out more and buy your own tank top here.
Initiatives
Dance For Australia
Some of the most famous Australian pole dancers are taking part in Dance for Australia. Created by my former teacher Cynthia Xu and Tanya Luna Watts, Dance For Australia sees a variety of prizes gifted in exchange for donations: pole goodies from brands such as Luna Polewear and Tatiana Active, 1-1 coaching with the likes of Michelle Shimmy, Blue Phoenix, Carlie Hunter and more, and also photoshoots.
- More info below, but here’s how you can take part:
- Donate $10 or more to your charity of choice from the list in their post (donations from 6 Jan 2020, directly to the charity)
- Send a copy of the donation receipt to us here via FB messenger or danceforaustralia@gmail.com
- You’ll receive back a confirmation message
- Prizes will be drawn on Friday 17th January 2020 and announced here on Facebook
The Black Light Photoshoot
One of my favourite photographers ever, Emma Salmon from The Black Light Sydney is running a raffle with a free photoshoot as a prize for everyone who donates to a charity of their choice. More info in the post below.
KPole and Dance Fitness Raffle
UK based KPole and Dance Fitness are also organising a raffle and a pole jam to raise money for Australia. More info in their post.
And here’s a GREAT non-pole initiative to help Australia
Model and influencer @lilearthangelk A.K.A. The Naked Philanthropist is offering nudes via her OnlyFans in exchange for donations for Australia. By the past Sunday, she’d estimated to have raised $500,000.
Not all heroes wear capes, but guess who wasn’t too impressed by this initiative?
Bloody Instagram, who deactivated her 50K follower profile even if she’d sent her appeal via Twitter, writes BuzzFeed’s Lauren Strapagiel. Instagram really are killjoys at the moment – can’t quite believe it.
My IG got deactivated because of this so follow my new one https://t.co/eAGiMrQVxj
— THE NAKED PHILANTHROPIST (@lilearthangelk) January 5, 2020
This is wrong for so many reasons, and it is everything we’ve been campaigning against at EveryBODYVisible for the past few months.
- It’s an example of social networks working together to take down a profile doing something good
- It’s also an example of human censorship as opposed to algorithmic one, which makes it even worse
- It shows how murky the territory of social media regulation is, how anyone selling anything remotely related to sex is a target (even for charity) and how we really need human rights law based regulation instead of leaving everything in the hands of a few social media giants.
If you want to help The Naked Philanthropist get her account back, here’s what you can do (via EveryBODYVisible):
Also, it’s worth keeping what Jordan Kensley posted in her stories in mind.