Lisa Greissl
There are few people who have not been touched by cancer either directly or indirectly. There are even fewer of the likes of Lisa Greissl who have not only had the strength to beat it but help to cure it. This young Lake Macquarie mum was diagnosed with a rare tumour just four days after giving birth to her first child several years ago. With chemotherapy, surgery and specialist care she beat the cancer but wanted to do something to thank the oncologist who saved her life. So she organised a charity ball at Caves Beach that raised more than $20,000 for the Cure Cancer Foundation. Since then she has undertaken and organised numerous other fundraisers for the charity, which is funding a number of research projects into finding a cancer cure. More recently she was the charity's local ambassador for the month-long BarbeCure event. I am pleased to say that I held my own BarbeCure with Lisa at Booragul. I am pleased to acknowledge in this Parliament Lisa's extraordinary efforts inspired by her experience to help fund the research that will hopefully find a cure for this disease that claims almost 50,000 Australian lives each year.