This beauty wants your spare $300m

When she graduated from actors’ college last year, Sophie Lavers from Elizabeth Bay had no idea she would soon be a finalist for Miss World Australia and deeply involved in raising money to help homeless people, especially young people, through the Oasis Centre in Surry Hills.

In fact she wasn’t really sure the Miss World competition still ran.

But one day her mum found a call for entries on the web and as the pair looked into it, liked the idea more and more.

‘Last year’s Miss World raised $300 million for charity,’ said Sophie.

That’s a total she would like to match and to date has raised a respectable $30,000 through pledges from friends, and functions like a big picnic in Rushcutters Bay Park.

She was one of the guests at a business breakfast at Club Swans in Kings Cross organised by the Potts Point and Kings Cross Business Partnership.

After that she was whisked off to work helping the Victorian bushfires.

She chose to address homelessness because of where she lives. ‘Around here you really see a lot of people on the street and it seemed the natural cause for me to support,’ she said. ‘I had also seen the ABC documentary The Oasis last year and it made a big impression on me.’

Categories in the Miss World finals are for Best Talent, Healthy Body Image, Beauty with a Purpose, Sport and Fitness, Communications, Innovation in Fashion and Miss World Australia Winner, so there’s a lot more to it than wearing a sash on a catwalk.

So expect to run into Ms Lavers about town in the coming year and dig deep for her ‘Beauty with a purpose’, especially if you have $300 million to spare.