By RUSSELL BENNETT
GEMBROOK’S Main Street was alive and pumping recently as the Kids Fun Run with Thomas returned to town.
Held at the Puffing Billy railway station for the past 13 years, the event started from modest beginnings with a group of Emerald Rotarians trying to find a way to raise money for children in need.
Now it’s a booming hills institution and one of its biggest fund-raisers, raising over $400,000 for the paediatric ward at the Angliss Hospital and the fight against polio – just to name a couple of causes.
This year all the money raised went to CPEC – the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre in Glen Waverley.
The day itself involved children running in their age groups against Thomas the Tank Engine, free mystery bags, prizes and plenty of food and drink, all among the hustle and bustle of the Gembrook Market.
But following on from last year’s event, there was another element to the fun run this year: kids raising money for kids.
Young Xavier Chapple and his sister Elisha raised over $1300 between them for CPEC, while three-year-old Harrison Elliott raised a staggering amount – in excess of $1500 – for the centre and his friend Lyla, who suffers from cerebral palsy.
Harrison demanded his parents ask everyone he knew – family and friends – for donations, and he even produced online videos for the cause over a four-week stretch.
This year, the ‘children raising funds for children’ aspect of the event alone raised over $9500 – a truly astonishing achievement. During the 2014 event 21 children raised over $150 each.
When organisers drew a line under the fund-raising competition, four individual fund-raisers raised nearly $5000 between them.
Fun run boys and girls winners were:
Purple (three years old): Quintin Kelly and Lydia Gao.
Orange (four years old): Jobe Davies and Airlie Taylor.
Blue (five years old): Jensen Bowering and Lia Adams.
Yellow (six years old): Xavier Potter and Alannah Finn.
Red (seven and eight years old): Jack Ashcroft and Sasha Carroll.
Green (nine to 12 years old): Cy Hodge and Kayleb Monro (in a dead heat) and Kayla Zunica.
