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Lauren from The Orange Butterfly Foundation

Butterfly Hour expansion

Lauren Roffey, CEO and founder of The Orange Butterfly Foundation, has lived experience of brain injury and disability which she acquired following a workplace accident in 2018. During Lauren’s period of rehabilitation, she began to uncover a whole community of people falling through the cracks in our system. This has been the driving force behind The Orange Butterfly Foundation and its ‘Butterfly Hour’ community support group, through which she hopes to bring light and support to those with a brain injury.

JFM sunshine logo mark

About the grant

Butterfly Hour is a community support group that welcomes both the brain injury and wider disability communities, and the non-disabled community to come together as one in a safe, supportive, and welcoming environment.

There are three main reasons why Butterfly Hour was created:

  1. The power of nature and the positive impact it can have on our overall brain health, such as decreased feelings of anxiety and depression.
  2. Social isolation after a brain injury or for anyone in the disability community can be extremely challenging to overcome. Butterfly Hour will always be that safe, supportive and welcoming space for anybody to connect, meet new friends and feel included in society again.
  3. The desire to remove barriers between communities and unite as one inclusive and accessible community for everybody to learn and grow from one another. We want to reduce the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, which can stop us from connecting with others from diverse backgrounds and experiences.
JFM sunshine logo mark

Project goals and outcomes

Butterfly Hour aims to achieve the following goals:

  • Establish Butterfly Hour communities in both the north and south regions of Adelaide.
  • Increase the social inclusion of individuals with a brain injury.
  • Increase understanding, respect and acceptance between the brain injury community and non-disabled community.
  • Raise awareness of The Orange Butterfly Foundation (traumatic brain injury and concussion) amongst the wider community.

We also aim to:

  • Increase the number of community members volunteering across our three Butterfly Hour locations, supporting them with an official role for the community event.
  • Provide opportunities for more community members to be guest speakers across the year at all three locations, sharing their story with the community if they wish.

This grant means so much to The Orange Butterfly Foundation and its community members. This is an opportunity for people to feel confident and safe enough to leave their house again, to re-join society in a welcoming and inclusive environment, meet people with similar stories for the first time, learn new information, make new connections with the non-disabled community and begin to rebuild their lives.

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“As CEO of The Orange Butterfly Foundation, I see firsthand the impact Butterfly Hour has on this community. The most important thing to me is making people happy and providing that feeling of belonging and purpose back into people’s lives. On a personal note, this grant has given me the opportunity to work and maintain a salary for the first time since my own accident, which is incredibly life changing for me. I’m truly grateful that people believe in my vision.”

Lauren Roffey, CEO and Founder, The Orange Butterfly Foundation
Acknowledgement of Country

In the spirit of reconciliation we acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures today.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be aware that this website may contain images or names of people who have passed away.