Since the day we left Melbourne after we lost our beautiful Max, we decided that one day we would purchase a property near the hospital that families of babies like Max could stay at, at no cost to themselves.  We wanted to do something for Max, something in Max’s memory.  Our two main stresses were, firstly and most importantly Max having such a serious congenital heart defect and secondly the financial struggle of relocating to Melbourne for Max’s treatment  while still covering the mortgage and expenses back home while at the same time being on leave from work to be with Max – we can’t stop other children being born with the congenital heart defects but we can do something to help out other families so that the financial stresses are greatly reduced.  If there were definite arrangements about when we needed to go to Melbourne and how long exactly we would be there, accommodation plans would have been so much simpler and cheaper but because everything is such an unknown prior planning was hard, long term accommodation (even a six month lease) was not possible.  But in hindsight knowing the situation families face, arranging Max’s Place was our dream.  If we can help other families to not know the financial stress that many have to go through on top of such incredible emotional stress while also providing somewhere really nice and comfortable to stay, then we have achieved our dream. 

On the 11^th October 2004, we will be travelling to Melbourne to renovate and set up ‘Max’s Place’ so it will be ready for its first family on the 17^th October 2004.  Max’s Place is in the Royal Park Towers directly opposite the Royal Children’s Hospital.  It is a one bedroom/studio apartment, but we have tried to arrange as much as we can as far as fold up beds and flip out sofas go so that there will still be room for everyone to sleep if they have other children or if grandparents want to stay for a while.

We are only a low income family so it took quite a while to get finance for the property (approximately two months after we signed the contracts), then came settlement along with just about everything that could possibly go wrong and then trying to evict the current tenants (we are hoping they will be out when they are suppose to be on the 11^th October).  It seemed to take forever but now we are almost there.  All along we just kept reminding ourselves why we were doing this and that kept us going.

For the last four months we have been spending a lot of time on the computer, sending letters to companies and letting them know what we were doing and asking if they would consider helping us out with donations.  We met with and spoke with the Social Work departments, medical staff and the personnel that coordinate accommodation, with the government departments that arrange Patient Assistance Transport Schemes and Heartkids Victoria and SA.  We have written up the paperwork that is necessary to coordinate Max’ Place.  We have also tried to coordinate a food hamper to be at the property for each new family that uses Max’s Place and have spent a lot of time on getting together a folder to help families out with information such as important phone numbers and the locations and phone numbers of local businesses they may need.

We have been very lucky to have had such a great response from SA and Victorian businesses that have helped us out.  We are so thankful to all these business because they have really helped to make Max’s Place extra special and extra comfortable for all the special families that stay there.

To view a list of our donators please click on the special thanks page in the menu to the left.