One thousand participants in the inaugural Sunshine Walk were radiating with pride as their fundraising target was smashed by $86,000.
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The walk was the main event in the Albury-Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre Trust Fund's Sunshine Week and despite a last-minute move from Hovell Tree Park to Noreuil, exceeded estimated participation by 500 people.
Trust Fund manager Kristy McMahon said with donations still open for two weeks as people finalise their events, Sunshine Week 2019 could hit $200,000.
"That's mind-blowing compared to what we thought we'd do," she said.
"We had $10,000 of donations come through just in the day before the event.
"There's a couple teams that just went all-out; the Ray White team raised $35,000 and the Howlong team were the regional towns winner and raised over $15,000.
"Team Sampson, with Hayden as our ambassador, raised over $27,000."
The Sampson family completed the 20-kilometre walk - across to Wodonga, the Cancer Centre and back - around midday.
Sixteen-year-old Hayden, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the end of 2018, said he was proud.
"We worked hard for this and we achieved our goal," he said.
Beer Deluxe Albury venue manager Bart Furst and his team came across the finish line at Noreuil soon after the Sampsons.
"We had 16 people in the team today, all but one worked until 5am this morning and then came and did the walk," he said.
"Everyone's got a story ... one of the guys battled Hodgkin's Lymphoma as a kid, so we walked for him, and my mum and Kelsea's mum are both dealing with it [cancer] as well."
Mr Furst said sales from a Sunshine XPA created with Bridge Road Brewers at five venues, and donations over the bar, had raised $14,000.
"We're pretty happy, as $10,000 was our target," he said.
With any first event, there were some teething problems that Ms McMahon said would be addressed in time for the second Sunshine Walk.
"Everything that could go wrong did go wrong ... but we're hoping they still enjoyed it," she said.
"Our sponsors have been really important to us, because we've virtually been able to run this event cost-neutrally.
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"People are starting to understand who the trust are and that the money stays 100 per cent locally ... it's not going to get swallowed up in overheads.
"There's up to 300 people a day coming into the cancer centre now, and that's 300 people not going down to Melbourne.
"Our work is about supporting that."