Miracles Day with a dash of coffee

Stories | February 21, 2024

During Miracles Day the energy was abuzz at CBM HQ thanks to over 80 amazing volunteers. From 6am – 10pm they answered phones, kept everyone fed and processed thousands of donations. The CBM ‘fun pod’ was busy with giant Jenga, basketball and minigolf, staff were raising money to avoid getting their heads shaved and everyone was having a blast for a good cause.

But we kept coming back to one fantastic volunteer—our Miracles Day barista, Janine from Ottovan Empire. She kept the coffee, chai and hot chocolate flowing all day. Even though it was her first Miracles Day, she got into the spirit of things like we’d known her for years.

When Janine isn’t making coffee she is a speech pathologist working with children and adults with disabilities here in Australia. So how did we find Janine? As it turns out, Janine is the daughter-in-law of David Lewis OAM, a long-standing CBM staff member. As Janine points out, “Dave’s a legend. He loves CBM so I’m very happy to help.”

David spent much of the early 90s living in Sierra Leone with his wife and three small children doing incredible work for CBM’s disability program. When the rebel wars started, David was part of expanding the program’s work into humanitarian response, focusing on people with a disability and other vulnerable groups fleeing conflict. In 2014 David received an ‘Order of Australia Medal’ for his work with CBM in West Africa and in promoting disability inclusion into Australia’s aid program, work which continues to this day.

Currently, David is coordinator of CBM International’s work in Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change where he advocates for people with a disability caught up in the effects of climate change.

So it’s fitting that his daughter-in-law believes in minimal waste and uses paper-free compostable coffee cups and lids at Ottovan Empire. The cups are made from food scraps so they breakdown in no time. We absolutely love this and hope more cafes get on board.

“CBM is doing great work. Hopefully we can get more miracles this year than ever” Janine said.

We certainly did. We broke our record and raised over 44,000 Miracles! We couldn’t have done it without our 80 volunteers and all the generous CBM supporters. And with a little caffeine, of course.

On average, a cataract operation takes just 12 minutes but can change a life forever. There is still time to give someone a Miracle.

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