Vogue Bathrooms’ Adrian and Daniel. Photo: Thomas Lucraft.
For many Canberrans, a bathroom renovation is something to daydream about while staring at the cracked tiles and dodgy tapware in the shower.
But soon, one lucky local won’t just be daydreaming – they’ll be enjoying a brand-new bathroom worth up to $40,000, thanks to a charity raffle with a difference.
Vogue Bathrooms, a family-run business that’s been renovating Canberra bathrooms for nearly two decades, has launched its first-ever bathroom giveaway to raise money for local charity Kids in Care.
The top prize is a full bathroom renovation, with second and third prizes to be confirmed, but likely to include new showers and vanities.
Winners will be drawn at random, and every cent raised goes to Kids in Care, a grassroots group supporting vulnerable children across the ACT and southern NSW.
For Vogue Bathrooms co-owner Adrian Kos, the decision to partner with Kids in Care was an easy one.
“Kids are innocent creatures. They’re here not by choice, and after speaking with Kids in Care, unfortunately, there are hundreds of kids that are growing up in less than ideal circumstances in Canberra,” he says.
“When you think about kids growing up without birthdays, without Christmas presents, it just strikes a chord.”
Vogue Bathrooms was founded in 2007 as an import business selling bathroom vanities and fittings. But it didn’t take long for the industry to evolve.
“People would come in, buy the goods, and then ask if we knew someone who could install them,” Kos recalls.
“At first, we said no – we just sold them. But the demand was there. So we pulled a team together and started doing full renovations in 2008–2009.”
Since then, Vogue has transformed countless bathrooms across Canberra and has worked with ACT Housing on kitchen and bathroom refurbishments for public housing tenants. Today, it’s run by Kos alongside his brother-in-law.
The bathroom raffle is the company’s first major charity push. While Vogue Bathrooms has supported Christmas toy drives for a number of years, Kos wanted to go further.
“We are still finalising which raffle platform we will utilise because some of them take a pretty big chunk, but most likely it will be Raffletix.”
Kids in Care began in 2013 after Detective Sergeant John Giles attended a heartbreaking case just before Christmas, where he found four neglected children who wouldn’t have experienced the holiday like most.
He rallied donations of toys to make sure those kids – and others like them – woke up to presents under the tree, which ACT Policing continues to do every year.
Kids in Care gifts more than 1000 presents to vulnerable children across Canberra and surrounds each Christmas. Photo: Kids in Care.
The charity has since expanded to provide toys and gifts to all children in ACT Child and Youth Protection Services and to many more across regional NSW. It also supplies ‘Go Bags’ – emergency packs for children suddenly placed into foster or emergency care.
Kos is confident the raffle will raise a significant sum – and perhaps inspire something even bigger.
“If it’s successful, I’d love to do it again. Maybe get other businesses involved – joiners, flooring companies – and one day give away a full house renovation worth $150,000. Imagine the money that could raise for kids.”
Canberrans can find out how to enter at Vogue Bathrooms.
