Left to right, Client Services Team members Michelle O’Brien and Lorraine Bombara, Chiropractor Lisa Naera and Naturopath Charlotte Inwood from Straight Up Health are excited to have launched the charity Health Helping Home to support the efforts of Midwest Charity Begins at Home.

As a health care professional Straight Up Health director and chiropractor Lisa Naera had becomeupset by the frequency and random nature of serious illnesses such as cancer befalling the Mid West community.

Determined to do something to help, and keen to give back to the community that supports her business, Ms Naera and the team at Straight Up Health have launched the charity ‘Health Helping Home’ to provide funding to Midwest Charity Begins at Home (MWCBH), which provides financial support to people struck by serious illness.

To raise money the Straight Up Health team will block out four days a year and commit those days to seeing only new patients or clients.

The new clients will pay the normal consultation fee on the day, but Straight Up Health will donate 100 per cent of that fee to MWCBH. Clients are considered new even if they have visited Straight Up Health before, but seen a different practitioner within the practice. The first ‘new client day’ is Saturday July 25.

“These are going to be huge events, and if you and our community will support us, we think we can raise $15,000 every year to help families in the Mid West to get through a horrible time,” Ms Naera said.

Ms Naera said she wanted to support MWCBH as a way of giving back to the Mid West community, and because of the way serious illness can strike without warning.

“It just comes all at once,” she said.

“One minute they are ticking along just fine, and the next, they are diagnosed with something horrible. It could be you or me, or someone in our family. It’s scary.

“And then, the reality of the situation hits. Who is going to pay the bills when the ones that earn the money can’t work? How do they pay for the trips down and back from Perth, or the place they have to stay when they are down there? What happens to the kids? School fees, mortgages, car payments and all the other costs of living. What if there is no insurance? What happens then?”

The volunteer-run MWCBH has raised and donated more than $1.2 million dollars and helped ease the financial burden of serious illness for 110 Mid West familiessince it started eight years ago.

Ms Naera urged new clients to book early for the first ‘new client day’ clinic on July 25 to help raise money for MWCBH.

“Please come and support us,” she said.

“We all know how quickly things can change in life. If it was you, you’d be so thankful for the help in bad times.”

Straight Up Health is Geraldton’snatural health and wellness hub. It offers chiropractors, a naturopath, nurse practitioner, midwife and doula, exercise therapist and a personal life coach and parenting specialist.

It also provides workshops on homoeopathic remedies, making your own non-toxic skin, tooth and hair products, healthy eating, diabetes control, parenting, as well as Qi–gung and yoga classes.

For more information and to book your new client consult contact Straight Up Health on 9964 4205, email appointments@straightuphealth.com.au