After two years of cancellations, we knew people had really missed the Ekka.
Most of all, though, they missed their iconic Strawberry Sundaes! Nothing beats the wonderful combination of fresh strawberries, limited-edition strawberry ice cream, vanilla ice cream and cream, served in a crispy sundae cone.
Over the past few years, we’ve had our DIY packs, pop-ups stalls and Berry Christmas offerings. Yet nothing quite beats eating a Strawberry Sundae at the Ekka itself. It just seems to taste that little bit better!
Strawberry Sundaes Results are in!
So we knew this year was going to be big. What we didn’t know is it would be a record-breaker. We sold over 127,000 Strawberry Sundaes over the nine days! On People’s Day alone we sold and incredible 20,200. That is literally tonnes of strawberries and ice cream.
A big thank you to all our volunteers
What it also means is our volunteers have once again done us proud. Did you know that the people serving the amazing Strawberry Sundaes are all volunteers? They generously donate five hours of their precious time (day or night) to scoop the Strawberry Sundaes, serve our customers, welcome fellow volunteers at the entry gate or work in the counting room. Some of them travel as far as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast to be there and many have been doing it for over a decade!
They do it because they love giving back and they do it because they know it is for a good cause. All the profits from the Ekka Strawberry Sundae stalls go to support life changing medical research at The Prince Charles Hospital.
With nearly three years between Ekkas, we did encounter some troubles securing our typical number of volunteers. As usual though – the community rallied together, and we saw over 2,500 volunteers register to join us as part of this life-saving initiative. Ekka 2022 brought record breaking sales PLUS record breaking volunteer numbers!
Get to know some of our Super Scoopers…
Our volunteers have been simply amazing, and we just can’t thank them enough. They really are the heart of our Strawberry Sundae stalls and quite simply we couldn’t have done it without them.
Wonderful volunteers like Yvonne, Ned and Robin. After having had eight heart attacks and a stroke, Robin owes his life to The Prince Charles Hospital. His first heart attack was in 1999 and he has experienced firsthand the innovations in less invasive treatments, and therefore understands the importance of medical research.
Our incredible super scooper, Yvonne has volunteered for The Common Good at our Ekka Strawberry Sundae stalls for an amazing 25 years. Yvonne’s late husband had a heart transplant at The Prince Charles Hospital, and they were actually volunteering at the Ekka when they received the call that a heart was available for him. They rushed from Ekka to The Prince Charles Hospital with a police escort. Yvonne continues to volunteer each year to honour her husband’s legacy and remember the fun they had together at Ekka.
Lastly, Ned who had open heart surgery at The Prince Charles Hospital when he was just 10 days old. Now 22, he volunteered with us as a way of giving back to the hospital that performed his life-saving surgery.
To those volunteers who were unable to make it this year, we thank you for all your best wishes and we look forward to welcoming you back to next year’s Ekka.
Interested in volunteering with The Common Good? Click here to see upcoming future volunteering opportunities.
