Hills' Angels – Help Involves Love, Laughter and Support

Our Dear Hilarie

After more time than we ever expected, and having so many special moments shared in this past year and a half our dear Hilarie lost her brave, inspiring and amazing battle with brain cancer.

She left this earth peacefully on Saturday, 28th August 2010. She now shines down on us from above.

The Angels would like to thank everyone for their love, support, prayers and assistance throughout our endeavours to support Hilarie and her beautiful family. Please know you have all made a difference in such a special life.

Hilarie’s life will be celebrated tomorrow, Wednesday, 1 September 2010 at The Hillside Chapel, Palmdale Lawn Cemetery & Memorial Park, Palmdale Road, Palmdale NSW 2258 from 11.30am.

…. but wait there is MORE!

The secret is out …….Hills’ Angels, after what seemed like months of letter writing, photo sending pleading and positive collective thoughts we were chosen by channel 9 to give our friend a chance of a lifetime. A Domestic Blitz.

We may not be able to cure cancer, but with a Domestic Blitz we could create a sanctuary for our Hil, a beautiful serene environment to take away the worry of everyday house maintenance, a special space to draw strength and rest from. For the Hills’ crew it was a daunting but exciting time.

Our thank you breakfast, was a fine tuned farce for the “sting” with many thanks again to Dominique of Stillwaters Restaurant, Davistown for putting on a fabulous spread. The thunderous Domestic Blitz bus rolling in at exactly the same time as the raised amount of $40,000 was announced. Hil was in a flood of tears, moments later Shelly and Scott arrived amongst new tears and huge squeals from the Lioness girls of East Gosford.

Hil, Hadley and Peter accompanied by the Angels were whisked away back to their house for a quick pack. A very jealous group of Angels were left at the curb as they drove away in a stretch hummer to their destination of Q Station of Manly. The jealousy didn’t last long as we were invited, for a special girls day the next day.

Early the next morning , official mini bus driver Angel Larissa drove us in a less glamorous vehicle, (hummer is $1200/day …. and busy) but very competently to Q Station, we listened to Star FM replaying a series of events which had led us to this day.

On arrival we were left in a small quaint room with a memorable view and told to be quiet as Hil did not know we were coming (not an easy task for a group jumping out of their skin with excitement). We were there for a day of pampering, the Brow Bar girls sculptured plucked and painted our eyebrows while the OPI Nail girls left us with sparkling nails, a gorgeous lunch with champagne flowing and a special performance by Paulini “Angel Eyes” left no one dry eyed. The time flew quickly and it is a precious memory we have of Hil enjoying the day, relaxed and happy. The cameras didn’t faze her anywhere near as much as they did us, Hilarie was a natural. A beautiful box of long stemmed roses for each Angel, as a parting gift.

There were many great times for the family that happened during their stay, special dinners, a boys’ aquarium visit, cricket on the beach with the NSW Cricket team and Nathan Bracken and a trip on a pirate ship was a highlight for Hadley.

Back at home there was no rest for the Angels, thoughts of sipping cocktails and wine while watching the tradies do their thing were quickly forgotten. A scene filmed with freshly made muffins delivered for the workers is a cringe factor and we are eager to see if it made the cutting room floor or  it is out there for you all to see.

Although they have 3 days to do the work honestly they do majority of it in 12 hours and the rest is planning, we were amazed on the reveal day morning, very little was done and nothing was finished. The crew were delightful and were very easy going, happy to sign and pose for hundreds of photos.

Reveal day…………………………………………….. You might need to watch that first …………….SORRY!

Stay tunned to Channel 9 where Hilarie’s Angels episode of Domestic Blitz will air Sunday, 28th February 2010 at 6.30pm.

There was a sneak peek with an interview aired on A Current Affair on Friday 26th February 2010, you can view it here.

A HILL-ariously successful evening

And what a night our second event was. A HILL-arious Night, in fact, of superb gags, intriguing games and some outrageous groovin’.

An overwhelmingly hot day did not deter our 360 plus guests from arriving at Breakers Wamberal on Friday and pouring into the Sports Lounge rooms. The team from L and A Flowerland at Ourimbah again surpassed our expectations with breathtaking floral table settings, a room full of pink and white helium balloons and of course their dedicated help and expertise for days and weeks leading up to the event.

Despite our excitement preceding the opening, we were quite unprepared for the rush of energy that came into the room, along with the wonderful people who attended. It was palpable and invigorating, and once again, we felt gratitude for the wonderful friends and families on the Central Coast who have joined in with us on this cause.

The evening started with a running DVD compiled by Angel Linda, set to a calypso version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, with some Brain Teasers, some words about us, about Brain Cancer, and about friends. The room was asked to stand up and move to a place where they could view the DVD, and it was met with great emotion by all those who viewed it. It was a very moving moment, collectively.

The amazing Rob Carlton opened the night with a heartfelt speech about his own experiences as a fellow Coastie, and his empathy for the situation faced by the Freeman Family. Craig Morrison on the conga drums was introduced, and his drum would signal the room to be quiet as Rob needed. It was certainly a hard task getting the rooms attention! But Rob and Craig are professionals, and the cues were heeded, eventually.

The amazing Desert Flame Dancers flooded the room with their colour and light and movement. Their energy and smiling faces were quite infectious, as they made their way through the tables and onto the dance floor .The room was bordered with rows of tables, with goods and services to be auctioned off, whether it was by means of a ’silent’ auction, or live. The live auction was headed up by the delightful Marty Lynes, and was certainly a high point of the evening.

The team at Breakers served delicious hot food throughout the first part of the evening, and it was an unenviable task moving between tables of guests, given as there were lots of reasons for our guests to mingle between themselves, the prizes and the games going on at any one time. The Breakers Bar was certainly well patronised during the course of the evening as well!

When Andrew Warner, Hilarie’s brother, spoke to the crowd of Hilarie, and her illness, and his heartfelt gratitude to those who are supporting her, it was doubtful there was a dry eye amongst us. He spoke emotionally, confidently, and thankfully. He also took the opportunity to talk of a community garden that he, Hilarie, their sister Karen and their mother, Meryl, had organised with the help of Gosford City Council, in the grounds adjacent to the Japanese Gardens at East Gosford. This place would now be an extra special spot, two beautiful Jacaranda tress planted, a gorgeous place to be alone with your thoughts, or picnicing with the children.

The truly HILL-arious Foxy Hornbags ( Kath n Kim impersonators ) had the entire room in the palm of their hands, as well as many of them dancing on the stage with them. The girls had raced up the freeway from Sydney to be at the event for us, and they certainly put on a show! Their input was outrageous, and their performance brilliant.

After raffles announced, silent auctions tallied, there was finally a chance for dancing, and those who did make it to the dance floor, shimmied with great style and energy. Even a few Angels managed to bust a few moves.

After months of preparations, meetings, pleadings, letters, questions, answers, hard work and headaches, our event was over. And although the end of the night was met with some relief, some Angels were overheard saying “and now? What else can we do?” And so, stay tuned……

Our first event went off with a bang (or pop)!

HILLS’ Angels had an absolutely amazing weekend, complete with lots of champagne corks popping for our guests. Here is a recap of our first event.

Our first HILLS’ Angels fundraiser, “Hats and Heels for HILLS”a ladies only breakfast was held on Saturday. During Friday preparations when dropping off our (donated!) cases of bubbly for our breakfast function, Larissa & Bec were discussing the costs with the owner of Stillwaters Resturant, Davistown – Dominique. There had never been an “exact” cost advised for breakfast, although we’d budgeted on $12 – 15 per person. Dominique was delighted to announce to the girls that she was going to be covering the full cost of the al la Carte breakfast for our 100 guests! You all should know that Hilarie was employed at Stillwaters, and they were so very honoured to be able to help. All that we were to pay would be for staff wages, about $300 for the morning! This was amazing news for us, meaning that the $30 per person cover charge was to be used almost completely for the HILLS’ Angels fund.

We started Saturday morning at 7.30 am (Bec at 6.00 am!) and as a team, we transformed a restaurant, into an amazing scene filled with hot pink HILLS’ Angels balloons, teamed with white & light pink! Masses of gerberas, roses & stargazer lilies (once again, donated!). The room was filled with happiness & love… and that’s before our guests were due.

The guests started to arrive around 8.15 am and were shown to their tables, offered (and usually accepted!) a glass of bubbly. By 9 am, we had 100 beautiful women – gorgeously dressed from head to toe and aged from 16 to 82 years – seated & ordering breakfast.

We had some fabulous prizes to be won by raffles, and our raffle sales met nearly $3,000. We had many very happy ladies, whether winners or not…

When the raffles were over, we held the Best Heeled & Best Dressed ladies competition where speeches and words of thanks were given, most importantly by our Hil. She was dressed so beautifully, and was so happy to be amongst us. She made a beautiful thank you speech for both the Angels and all the wonderful guests there on the day, with a special thank you for our sponsors, including her boss Dominique.

It was then Dominique’s right of reply. During her speech, we were totally surprised by her announcement that the staff had chosen to donate their time & wages for the morning back to our cause! If we had ever doubted Hil’s community feel, these young people wanting to work for nothing for between 3 –4 hours just confirmed it.

Shortly before the end of our event, a suggestion from the crowd arrived, someone was willing to pay money to see singer Dani Carr take his shirt of! After some cheering and egging on from the crowd he agreed. One of the other guests Narelle offered to sing while this happened. So to the tune of Hey Big Spender, Dani shed his shirt for a great cause, and the crowd went wild! It was a great finish, unplanned and certainly left our guests talking!

Susie, Larissa, Hilarie, Natalie, Bec, front Lisa, Shannon, Linda and Tracey

After some wonderful pictures & a few minutes of pondering for Hil, the Hats & Heels for HILLS’ breakfast was over! A farewell was given to each & every guest, and not one person was not gushing with pride for being a part of this amazing morning.

In the days following our first event we have continued to receive amazing words of praise from both friends and people we met for the first time at our event. We would like to share a very heartfelt blog post here. We are humbled at your words, but also very proud that our love and admiration for Hilarie shone through. It is after all why we are doing this, apart from the money that will help secure her son’s future, we want to make these moments the most special ones ever!

Our next event, A HILarious night of Gags, Games and Groovin’, will be held on Friday night 20th November…. look out Breakers the Angels are coming!