BEFORE the Big Freeze at the G and the Ice Bucket Challenge, the North East formed its own popular motor neurone disease fundraiser.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It involves walking and cycling events in Benalla and began in 2008 after local businessman and sportsman Michael Rodger was diagnosed with MND.
Now it is set to be staged for the tenth time on Sunday February 26 with the $500,000 fundraising milestone to be surpassed.
Mr Rodger died in 2010 but his widow Robyn Smith remains on Benalla’s Walk To D-Feet MND organising committee.
“It’s a boutique disease, it doesn’t affect many people but by God when it does it can just wipe you out,” Ms Smith said.
“There’s not a lot to do when you walk out of the doctor’s rooms and he has shaken your hand.
“Even with cancer there’s a chance, but there’s not a thing you can do with MND.
“You know how after something happens people will say is there anything I can do, well this (the walk) is how the community can do something and make a contribution.
“They have ownership of it and it’s their thing now too.”
The diagnosis of former AFL coach and player Neale Daniher with MND has bolstered fundraising efforts to tackle the disease.
Ms Smith’s child Georgina played netball with Daniher’s daughters and she has met him a few times.
“He really has taken it to another level and I work in sports administration in the disability area and I know colleagues of mine at the AFL have said it will go forever now – the Big Freeze,” Ms Smith said.
“It’s that level of media and attention that does make a difference.”
Ms Smith said the money raised through Benalla’s event had allowed a scientist to focus on research without having to make regular funding pleas.
Assessing the gene that causes MND and why it mutates and how it may be treated by different types of drugs is the focus of research.
About $436,000 has been raised through the walk and Ms Smith is confident it will snap the $500,000 mark with at least 900 entries expected for the next one.
More information and registration details can be found at act2dfeetmnd.com or phoning (03) 5762 7494.
