Blake’s Army to provide free leadership program led by sporting stars

Sporting stars from across Australia are uniting to provide a leadership program. Find out how you can get involved for free.

Sports fans across Australia have a unique opportunity to join a national leadership program endorsed by a who’s who of sporting greats.

AFL legend Paul Roos, alongside cricket superstars Aaron Finch and Justin Langer, Winter Olympics gold medallist Lydia Lassila and many other sporting greats are running the program next year to help people deal with the challenges of life.

And it’s all for a good cause - finding a cure for bone marrow failure.

Aaron Finch and Justin Langer will both provide their leadership in a program run by Blake’s Army. Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images

The program, which will run from March to November, will teach about leadership, team culture, high performance, resilience and health and wellbeing.

In a free program to all who get involved, the webinars and classes will provide a dual purpose.

Lydia Lassila is one of the sporting greats involved. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts

It will provide the opportunities for thousands to learn, while also supporting the cause of one of Australia’s most exciting charities Blake’s Army Ltd, in honour of Ballarat teenager Blake Dridan who has been battling severe aplastic anaemia for the past few years - a rare disease which doesn’t allow the body to produce enough blood cells.

Diagnosed in 2016, the teenager had bone marrow failure, forcing him to have a transplant.

Despite complications on the way and countless hours in hospital, Blake is on the path to recovery but continues to fight day to day to have some quality of life.

The charity raises money to help support the Maddie Riewoldt‘s Vision foundation in its quest to find a cure for all bone marrow failure syndromes and to support families of those who suffer bone marrow failure.

“Blake’s Army has been two years in the making and I couldn’t be prouder of the fact that it is the fight and resilience shown by my son Blake, that has inspired so many Australian icons to take up the fight,” Charity organiser and Blake’s father Luke Dridan said.

“As with all charities, our goal is to raise as many dollars as possible for the cause, however, given the calibre of people who have joined us in the fight, we identified fairly quickly that as a charity we could give as much back to communities from all around Australia as we receive.

“We identified a gap in Australian society in terms of a decline in overall community engagement, which has largely been driven by the last two years of Covid.

“Blake’s Army’s goal is to use our star power to re-engage communities and unite for the common goal of finding a cure for bone marrow failure. Blake’s Army is uniting Australia’s sporting and business icons to the Australian people with the aim of overwhelming bone marrow failure through not only generated funds, but also, some unbreakable Australian spirit.

“We’re here to benefit Australians and we’re very fortunate to have people like Paul Roos, Justin Langer, Lydia Lassila, Joel Camilleri, Tim Tszyu, Nick Maxwell and Aaron Finch put their hand up to raise the fight to bone marrow failure.”

Luke said the goal was to get as many people as possible from all around Australia to sign up to Roos’ free, once in a life-time personal development program, which commercially would cost thousands of dollars per head.

Blake’s Army are only able to offer this program free of charge due to the generosity of some amazing Australian’s who live and breathe the concept of “the greater good”.

All of Blake’s Army’s stars are volunteering their time and expertise as an authentic show of support for the cause.

In return, through corporate sponsorship and government funding for the program and a gala dinner later next year, money will come back to the charity, providing the funds required to provide substantial help.

“We want to give back to Australia as much as we hope to receive from corporate and government donations, and even public donations,” Luke said.

“Five, ten or 20 dollars - it all makes a difference.

“Over the past 12 months we’ve been able to generate in excess of $200,000.

“As a start-up charity organisation we’ve been able to make great headway but in 2023 we really want to hit our straps.

“We’ve got such a great program laid out for the year and it’s up to Australia to accept it and take it on.”

One of Blake’s biggest supporters since he got struck down by the illness has been Roos, who, despite living in the United States, still makes sure he can assist the family any way he can.

“I met Blake and Luke maybe five or six years ago now,” he revealed.

“One of the good things when you are in positions like ourselves is you get to meet people and get to help people.

“Seeing Blake and Luke and what they are going through, it’s really tough.

“There’s not a lot we can do other than continue to reach out, check in on Blake and see how he is going.

“It started as checking in and giving as much support as we could.

“That’s all we can do, sometimes you feel helpless.”

Roos said being involved in the program was his way of giving back to the family in the best way possible.

He added people who join up for the course will learn valuable lessons, no matter their level of experience.

“The synergies and the learnings from sport we can translate into other areas of life,” he said.

“There’s some really cool people we’re going to interview a lot around leadership, resilience, health and wellbeing stuff and culture.

“We’ll explore multiple things that relate to everyday life.

“This is an enormous opportunity for people to get on board and register.”

Luke said while Blake is slowly getting better, he’s still not out of the woods and hopes Blake’s Army can one day prevent others from getting the disease.

Bone marrow transplant recipient Blake Dridan (right) with his father Luke who has set up a charity raising funds for bone marrow failure. Picture: David Caird

“The last 12 months have been up and down for Blake,” he said.

“Just when you think you can see light at the end of the tunnel, an issue seems to arise that can see Blake spending weeks and sometimes months on end at the Royal Children’s Hospital having the best specialists in Australia, if not the world, at an absolute loss as to the cause and a definitive fix.

In February this year, Blake went from enjoying his first day at school with friends to 24 hours later, hanging onto life by a thread, being admitted into ICU at the Royal Children’s Hospital, unable to breathe unassisted. From there Blake remained on machines that would breathe for him for a number of weeks.

“We’ve had some severe depths, in February, where things were looking really dicey.

“He’s had his ups and down along the way.

“We hope that through the work we are doing at Blake’s Army, significant funds can be generated that will play a major part in helping Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision deliver on their goal of finding a cure to all bone marrow failure syndromes.

“It’s a wicked disease, you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.

“Our goal is unashamedly large. In honour of Blake’s most inspiring of defences, Blake’s Army plan to very aggressively return fire on bone marrow failure and have it consigned to the history books.”

To register for the program, head here.

To donate to Blake’s Army, you can head here.