New 'Build A Cure' home to be auctioned off to raise money for kids with cancer

So much love has gone into building a house to be auctioned off to raise money for kids with cancer, you can actually feel it as soon as you step inside.

“It’s quite extraordinary,” says Anne Johnston of The Children’s Cancer Institute. “All the tradies who volunteered to work on the house did so out of the goodness of their hearts and when I walked in for the first time, I really felt all that love and energy that had been poured in.

“The atmosphere is amazing. That house just breathes good karma!”

The four-bedroom, two-bathroom, fully-furnished ‘Build A Cure’ house was built entirely by volunteers with McDonald Jones Homes, with bricks donated by Austral Bricks, on land at Lake Macquarie, just south of Newcastle, gifted by the McCloy Group.

Finished this weekend, in just under 21 days, it’s set for an open day today, with lots of fun family activities taking place, before being auctioned off on October 23, with all the proceeds going to fund vital cancer research. The Block host Scott Cam will be showing people through the house.

Working on the home felt very special for everyone involved but perhaps none more so than supervisor Nick Ball. His toddler son Nixon was born with a malignant tumour on his head and, in the first 17 months of his life, has had to undergo 30 weeks of chemotherapy, six surgeries and 12 blood transfusions.

“Obviously, it’s a cause very close to my heart,” says Ball, 35. “I was always going to put my hand up for this and I would have been involved even if I hadn’t had such a personal connection as it’s such a good cause. Everyone shared the load.

“Nixon’s now 17 months old and is doing pretty well. He’s such a brave boy but I guess all these operations are all that he knows. It’s his ‘normal’. It breaks your heart when you see other children who start life as a normal kid and have issues later on. That’s so, so hard for them.”

It’s not often either that a house-building project drives a hard-bitten developer to tears, but McDonald Jones founder Bill McDonald doesn’t mind admitting that he cried a far few times during the construction of this home.

“I suppose I’m a bit of a softie but if there’s ever any doubt in your mind about doing this, you just look at that gorgeous little boy having to go through so much, and knowing that it’s just not fair that he has to,” says McDonald. “No kid should have to endure that.

“And then you’d see his dad Nick do a normal day’s work, then go and help everyone else with their work to get the house finished. We need to find a cure for childhood cancer to stop other children having to go through this; that would be a fantastic thing to achieve.”

It’s hoped that the auction will raise between $650,000 and $700,000 for The Children’s Cancer Institute, which will be the equivalent of funding seven new senior researchers for a year to do their work.

“We urgently need this funding because we want to support our new Zero Childhood Cancer Program,” says Johnston. “That aims to research a new approach to discovering personalised treatments for child with the most aggressive cancers with less than a 30 per cent chance of survival.”

The real estate agents who will be marketing the home believes they’ll have every chance of raising that sum. “It’s an absolutely stunning home,” says Shula Kentwell, CEO of PRDnationwide Newcastle/Lake Macquarie.

“It has everything you could want in a home, with beautiful finishes and furnishings, a double-car garage, and a number of upgrades, including solar power. It’s also on a magnificent site on a hill with distant views of the lake. It’s a very, very attractive family home.”

The open day today (Sunday September 18) runs from 11.30am – 2.30pm by the house at 20 Pitt Street, Billy’s Lookout, Teralba, Lake Macquarie, with free activities including a jumping castle, face-painting and a sausage sizzle.