On Saturday 9 September, 40 Whitefriars students ventured to the Doncaster Athletics track to take part in the yearly Cancer Council Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a fundraiser where teams strive to have someone walk their relay baton for the entire 12-hour duration of the event. Whitefriars has a long history of attending the Manningham Relay for Life and it was great to see so many guys there, especially after the hiatus over Covid.
This year the team decided to challenge ourselves and not only walk our baton (a chubby rubber chicken) around the track for 12 hours but to have the team run with it the whole time. We succeeded and the chicken made 350 laps of the track, working out to 140km or the distance to Bendigo! This completely smashes our previous record from last year of 250 laps.
Matt Cosi took home the award for most laps by an individual at a massive 108 which is almost 44Km, further than a marathon! As a team Whitefriars once again won the Most Spirited School award. In the nine years where this award has existed, Whitefriars has won a total of five.
I would like to acknowledge some key members of the team whose contributions were critical to the team’s success.
- Mr Wood. Mr Wood showed up, told us he was going to run for three hours, began doing laps and then three hours later stopped running.
- Carter Prokop. Carter came to our rescue late in the day when fatigue had set in and begun doing laps at a speed most of couldn’t sprint at. The sound of the rubber chicken’s call rang out around the track as Carter lapped the track so many times he lost count. He even befriended a Chinese construction company.
- Dathen Seneviratne. Dathen raised an amazing $1,532 making him the second highest raising individual, only second to the main organiser of the event herself.
- Liam Watts. Liam was always willing to take a lap when everyone else was too tired to and was on the track consistently throughout the day.
- Mr Nguyen. Mr Wood may have run for three hours straight, but that’s just called a Saturday for Mr Wood. Mr Nguyen might not have run 80 laps, but he gave everything he had to give and as the Parable of the Widows offering tells us, it’s not about how much you get, it’s about how much you can give.
The Whitefriars team raised $5,118 making us the 2nd highest fund raising team. The team page will be open for a few more days so if you would like to donate please go to this link https://www.relayforlife.org.au/event/manningham-2023
Joseph Li-Sculli (student)
