Capitol Hill’s gay bars and performance venues are raising funds in celebration of Australia Day to help recovery from the country’s bushfire crisis.

Bush Bash is a fundraiser happening this Saturday, January 25, at four Seattle gay bars. The funds raised that evening go to The Australian Community’s Disaster Relief Fund. R Place, Diesel, Queer/Bar, and White Center’s Lumber Yard are all having special fundraising performances or events to raise money to help people and wildlife affected by the Australian bushfire crisis.

Meanwhile, a 12-hour drag fundraising event will do its part to Save the Koalas Sunday at Capitol Hill’s Fred Wildlife Refuge.

Michael Christo and Joseph Pedro are the main organizers of the Bush Bash fundraiser. Michael, a creative director, hails from Australia and moved to Seattle only five months ago after a four-year stint in London.

“My parents live in Victoria. They were volunteering a couple weeks back. They were helping take food to these food banks, pretty much helping feed people that have lost everything. Because I’m not there, I’m away from home and family, I get this feeling like, ‘There must be more I can do even though I’m not there,’” Michael explained. “I don’t know if it’s guilt or just a need to want to help. A good close friend of mine in America was saying to me, ‘Why don’t we just do something here to show support?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah actually, why not?’ It was the birth of an idea from a single conversation.”

The idea came to Michael almost two weeks ago, and even though that wasn’t much time to plan before Australia Day, he knew the fundraiser had to be on that day.

“Australia Day is the 26th, which is a Sunday, which means it’s our Saturday here with the time difference. I joined the dots really quickly thinking, ‘If there’s something I can do, it has to be on that day, because why wouldn’t anyone use that day for awareness? It’s the perfect link back to Australia as well. I phoned a couple charity groups that are in the US, and they are specifically set up so a business can pour money into a charity with some form of tax deductible receipt, and then they directly send 100% of the money all to the bushfire crisis. It gets distributed to various things like wildlife injuries, the firefighters, and people that have lost homes. All the pieces just fell into place within one week. There’s no way I could have done that on my own,” Michael observed. “Everyone just came together.”

Each bar gets to decide how to raise money for the cause. Expect themes like Australian music hits, drink specials, Priscilla Queen of the Desert-themed drag performances, and Kylie (as in Minogue) the Koala mascot. Each participating bar will have one of the stuffed toy Koalas, each of which have bandaged paws, a thank you note, and a QR code. “If you would like to donate, scan it with your phone and there’s a direct link to this charity that’s here in America that’s helping the bushfire crisis,” Michael said.

Meanwhile, the Save the Koalas event at Fred Wildlife hopes to help boost funds for one organization that helps save and rehabilitate koalas, another to benefit wildlife in general, and one for firefighters.

“We’re not doing any of the big ones,” and organizer tells Queerspace Magazine. “We’re not doing the Australian Red Cross. The goal was to find smaller family-owned organizations that a smaller donation will go a lot farther. If we’re donating five thousand dollars it actually makes a difference. So my Australian friends are really helping with [investigating] that.”

You can find more Capitol Hill area events on the CHS Calendar.

[ai1ec view="posterboard" events_limit="10"]

BECOME A 'PAY WHAT YOU CAN' CHS SUBSCRIBER TODAY: Support local journalism dedicated to your neighborhood. SUBSCRIBE HERE. Join to become a subscriber at $1/$5/$10 a month to help CHS provide community news with NO PAYWALL. You can also sign up for a one-time annual payment.