Three Years, 65 Roses, and a Garden That Keeps Growing

How the Harcourts Foundation became part of the Breathtaking story

There is a story we tell often in the Cystic Fibrosis community, because it explains so much in so few words. Cystic Fibrosis is hard for a child to say. So somewhere along the way, in clinics and support groups, it became known instead as “65 Roses” — the way a small child’s ear and tongue hear the difficult medical term. Sixty-five roses. A name a five-year-old can carry, even when the diagnosis itself is too heavy for adult shoulders, let alone small ones.

It is fitting, then, that roses have become part of how Breathtaking Fundraising tells its own story — and part of how we tell the story of our partnership with the Harcourts Foundation.

A Partnership That Took Root

Four years ago, Breathtaking Fundraising NPC set out with a simple but stubborn belief: that no family facing Cystic Fibrosis in South Africa should have to fight for treatment access alone. Belief alone does not pay for nappies in a hospital ward at 2am, or keep an online support group running for a parent who has nowhere else to turn at the end of a hard day. For that, we needed partners who believed alongside us — and showed up, year after year.

The Harcourts Foundation has been one of those partners. Not as a once-off donor passing through, but as a steady presence at our side through three consecutive years of our annual Gala, helping to build something that has grown sturdier and more capable with each passing year.

What That Support Has Made Possible

Because of this partnership, three things have become real for our CF community that were not possible before:

Online support groups. Parents and patients living with CF, often in towns far from a specialist clinic, can now find each other — and find a trained ear — without leaving home. For a disease that is by nature isolating, this has quietly become one of our most valued offerings.

Practical relief during long hospital stays. When a child is admitted for weeks at a time, the small things pile up fast — nappies, wipes, toiletries, the unglamorous essentials that no one budgets for in a crisis. We have been able to put these directly into the hands of families who needed them most, exactly when they needed them.

Just over R600,000 raised at our annual Gala. In partnership with the Harcourts Foundation, our Gala has grown into the cornerstone fundraising event of our year — funding research, treatment access advocacy, and the support programmes above.

Roses in the Room

At this year’s Gala, we auctioned a bouqet of 65 red roses — one rose for every letter a small child cannot quite manage, one rose for the name they use instead. The roses went, fittingly, to March, and the bidding in that room became its own small embodiment of the Roseto Effect we so often speak about: the idea that community itself, the simple fact of people gathering and caring together, changes health outcomes. That evening, in that auction, we watched it happen in real time.

Maya van der Poel and Eberhardt Kruger of Harcourts Winelands were part of that room, as they have been for three years running. Their presence at our Gala is never just attendance — it is a visible, personal continuation of the Roseto Effect for our CF community: familiar faces who return, who know our families’ stories, who help make a fundraising evening feel like a gathering of people who genuinely care.

Looking Ahead

Three years in, the Harcourts Foundation is no longer simply a sponsor on a list — it is part of the fabric of how Breathtaking Fundraising has been able to show up for our families. We are deeply grateful, and we look forward to the years still ahead, and the roses still to come.