Celeste Barber Raises Over $30M In 3 Days For Australian Firefighters

Celeste Barber set up the donation page on Facebook on January 3

Comedian Celeste Barber has been making people laugh for years on Instagram. She’s often seen in our feed posing next to celebrities to show what we average folks would look like if we tried pulling off the looks of models and stars. Recently, she decided to take some time out of her schedule to raise money to help with the Australian wildfires that are devastating the country. She’s done just that, raising over $30 million for New South Wales’ volunteer firefighters — in just three days.

“Want to join me in supporting a good cause?” Barber wrote on her Facebook fundraiser page, which she launched on January 3. “I’m raising money for The Trustee for NSW Rural Fire Service & Brigades Donations Fund and your contribution will make an impact, whether you donate a lot or a little. Anything helps. Thank you for your support.” Barber has millions of followers across social media who stepped up and helped contribute to this overwhelming number (already surpassed AU$33 million) in a very short space of time.

The NSW Rural Fire Service is the largest volunteer firefighting service in the world and main combat agency for the fires, with over 70,000 volunteers. Many of these firefighters have been working for over 100 days fighting the fires raging in the area, doing all of it unpaid.

Barber also shared a video of her mother-in-law, Joy Robin, who was being asked to evacuate and was seeking shelter by the wharf in Eden, NSW. “This is our war,” said Robin in the video. “This fire is Australia’s war at the moment. It’s been right down the Great Dividing Range, and now it’s going right to the coast. And there isn’t one [Australian Defence Force member] on the ground. But they’ll come in and mop up and say, ‘Oh, how good we are! Aren’t we great we are for doing this? We’ve been abandoned.'” Robin was referring to PM Scott Morrison who has been condemned for not doing more to stop the devastation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B69vCH7nsmd/

“People are amazing. Power to the people. Someone needed to do something and the people have done something,” she told Australia’s Channel 7. Barber, and other celebs like Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Pink, and Selena Gomez, have all pledged money to help the volunteer firefighters.

Thank goodness for people like Barber who can rally so many to give so much.