The Chase Family of Tottenham will be needing some good warm beanies this winter after shaving their hair for Cancer last weekend in honour of family friend Austin Steer who lost his battle with cancer in 2021, raising an amazing $17,384.

Amity and Steve and their four sons, Harry, Fergus, Toby and Paddy vowed to shave their heads with an online GoFundMe page which caught a lot of interest and lead to the family shaving last weekend.

“Austin was a Trangie farmer and Steve’s best mate,” said Amity Chase. “He wasn’t married and didn’t have kids of his own, so he took on ours and was liked a loved uncle to them, he spoilt them rotten.”

“Austin became sick during co-vid and sadly was diagnosed very late because of the challenges of seeing a doctor during lockdown. He was rushed to hospital with a bowel obstruction and told he only had a few weeks to live. He rallied and lasted ten months before we lost him”

“We miss Austin a lot and wanted to do something special to honour him, but we really didn’t want to restrict it to just bowel cancer fundraising.”

“I had grown my hair over Co-vid so I thought I would donate my hair but then Steve said, ‘why not all of us’ and the boys agreed, so it became a whole family affair.” said Amity.

The funds raised by the family will be donated to the Western Cancer Centre Foundation and the family is in awe of the response to their efforts.

“We chose the Western Cancer Centre Foundation as the charity to support keeping it local. The Centre is an amazing facility, treating so many western patients and the Foundation assists the centre with funding, education & support to families,” according to Amity.

ABOVE: Chase family before the Big Shave

On the night an auction took place during the Central West Working Horse Association Long weekend event giving the highest bidder the right to shave Steve and choose the shave style. The honours were won by Don Foran and family who then donated it back to be auctioned again which led to a syndicate win headed by Greg Woodlock.

This auction was added to the proceeds of a Central West Working Horse Association raffle of $1491, as well as the head shave cash bucket of $810.60. These cash pots were boosted by many generous people giving their prize money and run fees, as well as a Tottenham cash bucket of $122. 

Holcim Australia ( a large Concrete supplier with a quarry in Dubbo) pledged a generous $2,000 donation. Added to the GoFundMe proceeds the fundraiser raised over seventeen thousand dollars, which the Chase family hopes will make a big difference to the Foundation.

“We are blown away to have raised so much and all thanks to the generosity of so many friends, colleagues and strangers. It's incredible, we are truly humbled.” said Amity.

"Thank you so much to everyone for their support and love not just for us but for Austin too."

ABOVE: Steve and Fergus Chase

ABOVE: Amity and Toby Chase