Greg Chappell had the support of some of the top athletes across Australia as he looked to raise funds for an SCG "sleep out" on Sunday night in an effort to fight youth homelessness. The former Australia skipper was joined by brother Trevor Chappell, cricketers Mitchell Starc, Steve O'Keefe, Alyssa Healy, Lisa Sthalekar and Moises Henriques, rugby union luminaries Nick Farr-Jones, Phil Waugh and David Campese, rugby league stalwart Steve Mortimer, Olympic beach volleyball medallist Kerri Pottharst, and Michelle Heyman from the Australian women's football team.
Chappell has often spoken about how talent has gone waste due to the lack of support and opportunity and the “sleep out” is an effort to work towards giving talented individuals the right platform to showcase their ability.
"The fundraising is an important part of it, but the other part that I think is equally important is just to make this more widely known," Chappell told Macquarie Sports Radio. "When I first heard about it, I was staggered there were so many Australians homeless and so many of them are under 25 years of age, and that's a hell of a drain on society if nothing else.
"There's a lot of talent there that's going, if not to waste, it's underperforming and I have no doubt there are people out there who are very talented that maybe haven't had a lot of opportunities, the sorts of opportunities that I've had and we've had, that given a second chance might really contribute to society and hopefully break a cycle.
"I just hope that we can make a difference, get people talking about it and doing something about it. Obviously, one way is to donate some funds, but the other thing is to put pressure on governments at all levels. We don't expect them to necessarily stump up with the money all the time, but if they can create the environment with more social housing and create the opportunity for people to invest in social housing for those who haven't got somewhere to live, I think it would go a long way towards reducing the numbers drastically."
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