Tyler Redway
A COMPTON woman has raised seven times her initial goal for the Cancer Council Foundation following a successful walk-a-thon last weekend.
Naomi Moreland hosted a March Charge event where she walked 60 laps of the Tantanoola football oval, raising $7247 for the Foundation.
The March Charge encourages participants to walk a selected number of kilometres throughout the month while fundraising.
At the start of the month, Ms Moreland committed to walking a total of 200km and set an original fundraising goal of $1000.
After her challenges were decided, she thought a walk-a-thon would aid the cause to a larger scale which pushed her to ask for the Tantanoola Football Club’s assistance.
“I approached the club to ask if I could use their grounds for the event and it just snowballed from there,” she said.
“We had businesses donating raffles, food, products and sometimes even their services.”
She added she had lost three of her family members to different forms of cancer, including her father, mother and father-in-law.
“My mother passed away at the age of 57 from lung cancer despite having never smoked in her life,” Ms Moreland said.
“A few years later, my father lost the battle to bowel cancer and five years ago; my father-in-law to esophageal cancer.”
She also added her husband had been a victim of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, until he was given an ‘all clear’ after treatment had succeeded against the disease.
“We’ve seen the advancement in treatment over the years and what Cancer Council is able to do now so I like to be able to give something back,” she said.
Ms Moreland said she found the March Charge through a post on social media and knew it would be something she would be capable of.
Ms Moreland was unsure of what attendance would be like until the day came around.
The turnout was larger than she expected with some attendees in particular dressing up in costumes to keep morale high for the day.
“In the end we had a really good attendance and it was so nice to see everyone tell their story of how cancer has touched their lives as well,” she said.
Ms Moreland thanked the Tantanoola Football Club for allowing her to use its facilities as well as a large number of local businesses which supported her on the day.
Fundraising for March is ongoing and anyone willing to contribute is invited to visit the March Charge website.
