To raise funds and awareness for homelessness charities, The Chappell Foundation hosted an event that spending a Sunday night sleeping on the SCG outfield, which is named ‘sleepout’. Former Australian skipper Greg Chappell has spoken about this initiative where many Australian sports stars came out to support him.

Greg’s brother and former Australian cricketer Trevor Chappell; Aussie cricketers Mitchell Starc, Steve O’Keefe and Moises Henriques; Australian women’s cricketers Alyssa Healy and Lisa Sthalekar; Olympic gold (2000) and bronze (1996) medallist beach volleyball player Kerri Pottharst; Australian women’s footballer Michelle Heyman; former Australian rugby union players Nick Farr-Jones, Phil Waugh and David Campese; former Australian rugby league player Steve Mortimer etc. were present along with Greg Chappell in the ‘Sports Stars Sleepout’ event on Sunday night.

Greg Chappell has spoken out about this event, including mentioning the importance to organise this event.

Chappell told Macquarie Sports Radio, “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. 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.”

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Chappell has mentioned that there’s a lot of talent have been wasted due to lack of support and opportunities.

The former Aussie captain said, “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.”

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While Chappell hopes to make something difference through this event, he also spoke out the importance to build up social housing to reduce this big problem.

Chappell said, “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.”