The CEO Pikeout: How The Rich & Powerful Do Charity
Spiderman onesies, Adidas tracksuits paired with Cartier watches, tailor-made suits with folded silk pocket squares and shiny brown leather shoes – these, coupled with promotional beanies, are the outfits of choice for the middle-aged men sauntering around the park tonight.
Youths in hi-vis wander about with clipboards and flattened cardboard boxes. ’Love Shack’, ‘Two Princes’, ’Beat It’ and other obnoxiously peppy, kitsch hits mix with the constant rattle of traffic from the bridge above.
There’s a coffee cart, two tables brimming with blue gift bags, a pop-up store named “Contraband”, twelve art works, four projectors, two hundred seats and three lone port-a-loos – all encircled by a temporarily erected fence guarded by no less than six security guards and volunteers.
Tonight is no ordinary night under Brisbane’s Story Bridge.
Tonight it’s the St Vinnies CEO Sleepout – an event where the top 1% subject themselves to contrived homelessness in the name of charity for a night. And it’s really quite bizarre.
