![\"Banfield\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/a59babc2e70279684cceff878d74162d1093959d.jpg\")
Camera IconBanfield\u2019s work in the community has been recognised with the award. Credit: Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\nBailey Banfield\u2019s years of service to the community have earned the Fremantle veteran the AFL Jim Stynes Community Leadership Award.<\/p>\n
During Monday night\u2019s Brownlow Medal count, Banfield was announced as the winner of the award, which recognises the player determined to have best honoured the late Melbourne champion and administrator\u2019s charitable legacy.<\/p>\n
Banfield is a long-time volunteer for the club\u2019s charity, the Purple Hands Foundation, as well as the Starlight Children\u2019s Foundation and Worthy Australia.<\/p>\n
This year, he spearheaded the creation of Freo Cares, an initiative designed to get Fremantle\u2019s players into the community.<\/p>\n
Some of the community groups supported by the program this year include seriously ill children, people experiencing homelessness, women and children escaping domestic violence and disengaged youth.<\/p>\n
Banfield reserved his first set of thanks to Stynes\u2019 family and said being associated with his legacy was an \u201cincredible honour\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people that are at these organisations, they\u2019re doing the really hard work, day-to-day, and they give us the opportunity to give back,\u201d Banfield said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFooty has given me so much. To be able to have this platform to give back a little bit of what I\u2019ve got now through this sport is an incredible honour.<\/p>\n
Camera IconBanfield\u2019s work in the community has been recognised with the award. Credit: Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these programs work so hard to provide for kids and their families who, through no fault of their own, have suffered circumstances that are tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Starlight, putting smiles on the faces of sick kids. That\u2019s Worthy, who are helping survivors of domestic abuse find their new normal and it\u2019s Purple Hands, who are providing opportunities to kids in rural and remote communities which they might not otherwise get.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of winning the award, Banfield has received $40,000 to donate to a charity or cause of his choosing.<\/p>\n
Before it was announced that he had won the award, Banfield\u2019s wife Julia Edwards took to social media to social media to reveal the pair were expecting their first child.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive months of growing our little girl. First outing: Brownlow,\u201d Edwards\u2019 post on Instagram read.<\/p>\n
Fremantle\u2019s chief executive Simon Garlick said Banfield richly deserved the recognition which came with the honour.<\/p>\n
\u201cBailey has worked tirelessly with the Freo Cares program he established and continues to drive, which is built on genuine relationships, sustained effort and a real desire to leave things better than he found them,\u201d Garlick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe leads by example, brings teammates and our staff along with him, and does the vast majority of this work without any expectation of recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are immensely proud to see his quiet, tireless work for others acknowledged on the public stage it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Banfield is the first Fremantle player to win the award, which was taken out by West Coast\u2019s Beau Waters in the final year of his AFL career in 2014.<\/p>\n
The utility has played 119 senior games over his nine-year career but has fallen out of favour for senior selection this season, making only one appearance for the Dockers.<\/p>\n
He has been in fine form for Peel Thunder in the WAFL and starred in their grand final win over Claremont on Sunday, finishing with four votes in the Simpson Medal.<\/p>\n
Stynes, who started the Reach Foundation to help young people develop mental health skills in the midst of a Brownlow-winning playing career, died in 2012 after a battle with cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bailey Banfield\u2019s years of service to the community have earned the Fremantle veteran the AFL Jim Stynes Community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,10124,588,85],"class_list":["post-900123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}