Antoinette Russell

Community volunteer

2023 WA Senior Australian of the Year Nominee

Eighty-year-old community volunteer and former nurse Antoinette Russell packs more into a day than many do in a year.  

Each morning from 7am, she hits the phones for the Red Cross, calling five different people considered socially isolated or vulnerable due to health issues. She’s made more than 25,500 calls over the past 13 years.  

Antoinette has also visited almost 1,300 elderly or vulnerable people as part of the Red Cross Community Visitors Scheme. And she volunteers with Uniting Care (now Juniper Aged Care) to visit those in care.  

But Antoinette shares more than her friendly smile with the community. Over the past 50 years she’s donated blood and plasma to the Red Cross about 650 times – that’s an average of 13 times a year.  

She also continues to play tennis at least twice a week, and supports junior development and other tennis club activities at the Greenwood Tennis Club.