21 October 2016
As a national brand, we appreciate the responsibility and opportunity that we have to give back to our customers and the people of Australia. Since the start of Hire A Hubby 20 years ago, our Head Office and individual Franchisees have been taking part in local initiatives to help the communities they are based in but a few years back we decided individual contributions wasn’t enough. It was time to bring our corporate social responsibility to the forefront of what Hire A Hubby is about.
You may not be aware but Hire A Hubby has over 250 Franchisees across the country and every August we all meet up at our National Conference which has taken our Hubbies to a number of destinations across Aus and also further afield in Fiji, Bali and most recently, Vietnam.
Back in 2012 at our Conference in Bali, our CEO Brendan received a call from one of our Hubbies saying that sadly he would not be attending this year’s gathering as he had recently been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Unbelievably so, this happened the following year too with another one of our Hubbies.
So we set out to see what we could do to help and met with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia charity who are dedicated to reducing the impact of prostate cancer on Australian men, their partners and families. We learnt:
THREE FACTS ABOUT PROSTATE CANCER
 In Australia, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men.
 More than 3,000 men die of prostate cancer in Australia every year.
 More men die of prostate cancer than women die of breast cancer.
If there was anything we could do to reduce just one death to prostate cancer, we needed to do it. So we devised a plan for how we could utilise our position in communities across the country to drive awareness of men’s health, particularly in the rural areas. We would do this by putting a vehicle on the road to travel out and inform men and their families on the importance of getting tested, as early detection is key.
In April 2013, we received the go ahead and started to raise money to put the vehicle on the road. Our Franchisees and Commercial Services department began donating $1 from every invoice and we held a number of events throughout the year including Charity Golf Days and also silent auctions at our Conferences. Over the winter of 2015, we had finally reached our target and in August 2015 at our National Conference in Uluru, we revealed the Hire A Hubby Man Van!
At the same Conference, we educated our own the importance of men’s health and we launched ‘The Pledge’ for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month 2015. As the majority of our Hubbies fall within the recommended testing ages, we had 116 team members and Hire A Hubby friends & sponsors take the pledge to get tested for prostate cancer. This also led to another 73 people commenting on Facebook to tell us how much they supported our efforts. Here you can see them holding up their Pledges:
Since then, the Man Van has travelled across six states to a number of events include the V8 Supercar meets to educate men on the importance of getting tested. We are so proud of this initiative and continue to support this cause, that’s very dear to our hearts, every day. We thank you for each and every one of you who has donated at one of our events or booked a job through Hire A Hubby, we couldn’t do it without you. This is just one of the ways we’re trying to give back.
Want to find out more about our local community projects? Take a look at just a few of the activities we’ve been proud to be involved in.
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Men over age 50 (or 40 with a family history of prostate cancer) should talk to their doctor about testing for prostate cancer using the PSA test and DRE as part of their annual health check-up. Men should make an individual informed decision about testing based on the latest available evidence on the benefits and potential harms of testing and subsequent treatment for prostate cancer.
For more information, please visit the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.
