News

July 4, 2025 | IN Together Magazine | BY AVID | 3 min read 

Committing to sponsor or partner with local and national community groups and organisations is something AVID has long prided itself on. But grants and support shouldn’t be merely a box ticking exercise and instead, should enhance the lives of those being supported and be intrinsically linked to the broader mission and values of the company.

Enter St John Ambulance Victoria (St John), a vital organisation with the simple goal of ‘more lives saved’. In early 2024 Carolina, AVID’s Deanside community in outer Melbourne, first announced the Victorian iteration of the nationwide charity as its recipient of AVID’s annual Sponsorship and Grants Program. 

The grant provided funding for their existing training and education programs, including CPR Lab, a free, 10-minute CPR workshop.

As creators of new neighbourhoods, welcoming hundreds of families to AVID’s network of communities each year, St John was a perfect fit. 

As St John Victoria Executive Officer Gordon Botwright put it, CPR is something everyone needs to know. 

“Everyone should be learning CPR, and CPR Lab is an accessible way for people to be exposed to these skills. Carolina is a young community, with lots of new families who might not have done first aid training yet.

“Our research has shown that only about 9% of Victorians would feel very confident responding to a medical emergency and 62% say no one in their home has received first aid training. Getting into communities allows us to change these statistics.”

St John’s CPR Lab brings the education to participants, with their mobile van and team of experts providing fun and informative workshops all over the state.  CPR Lab is a mobile learning bus that helps communities learn life saving techniques by providing real-time feedback as they practice on a mannequin.

In October, the small but mighty van made its way to Carolina for an afternoon of CPR education for not only AVID residents, but for the wider community to attend as well. 

In November, the van stopped in again, this time as part of Carolina’s Diwali Family Fun Festival, bringing an educational aspect to the vibrant community event. 

With over 200 local residents dropping in across the two sessions an impact was made on the community, but this was just the first step in an ambitious goal to make Carolina a CPR-prepared address. 

“Knowing CPR is vital. You can never prepare for when this life-saving skill will be needed but what you can do is educate yourself and your family early and refresh yourself on the key steps to ensure you’re ready,” explained Bruce Harper, AVID’s Acting General Manager Victoria. 

With the first two workshops been and gone, the Carolina and broader AVID team are looking for new ways to bring CPR education to the forefront of its neighbourhoods. 

“We’re posting about it on our social media channels and are planning to use our wide reaching AVIDEngage platform to collaborate on CPR awareness video content with St John which can be published on AVID’s YouTube channel and shared across all our neighbourhoods,” Mr Harper said.

“It is a privilege to be able to fund these initiatives and bring meaningful skills to our communities.”