Schools unite for Good Friday Appeal fundraising walk

It’s more than a marathon for these wonderful walkers.

Almost 400 students from four Victorian schools sported their broadest smiles – and sturdiest shoes – as they took on a huge challenge for a great cause last week.

Students from Elisabeth Murdoch College, Woodlands Primary, Langwarrin Park Primary and Langwarrin Primary walked more than 50km from St Kilda to Frankston over the course of one day.

Leaving their schools at about 5.45am and starting the lengthy walk at 7am, the I Can Challenge participants raised more than $200,000 for the Good Friday Appeal, an annual fundraiser for Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.

I Can Challenge organiser Jess Wade said the event had a special connection to the appeal, with the Good Friday Appeal chair, Penny Fowler, related to one of the participating school’s namesakes.

“We participate because of the connection with Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, who is Penny Fowler’s grandmother,” Ms Wade said.

“We were lucky enough to have Penny join us for the first 10km, which was awesome.”

The I Can Challenge has been running every second year since 2014, drumming up more than $655,000 in donations in that time.

One of the walkers, Oscar Taylor, 10, raised $3000 for this year’s event, knocking on doors in his local community to ask for donations under the supervision of his parents.

His proud mum, Sammy, said Oscar’s efforts ahead of the walk boosted his confidence, respect, empathy* and public speaking skills.

“He was pretty nervous to begin with, so he made a video to post on the local community Facebook page announcing his intention to door knock and asking the recipients to be kind as it was his first time,” she said.

“It was met with such an amazing response, that he was pumped to get started and meet everyone.”

GLOSSARY

empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of others

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QUICK QUIZ

How many schools and students took part in the walk?

How far did they walk?

What is the name of the walking challenge?

What did the challenge raise money for?

Name two of the boosts Oscar got from raising money by door knocking his community.

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

1. Choose your challenge

Choose a cause that is important to you. If you wanted to raise some money for this cause, what are some challenge ideas that you could organise? Spend 10 minutes creating a brainstorm of all of your ideas.

Then, choose your favourite idea and write to explain the following:

What is your cause and why is it important to you?

Why do you think the challenge you have chosen would attract attention and sponsorship?

What steps would you need to take to make your challenge happen?

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity

Curriculum Links: English; Civics and Citizenship

2. Extension

Create a three-column table. In your table, list the emotions that participants in the challenge would have felt before, during and after their 50km walk. Can you list at least 20 emotions?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity

Curriculum Links: English; Personal and Social Capability

VCOP ACTIVITY

Thank you speech

The students all did an exceptional job collecting donations and then making everyone proud by completing their big walk. They are exhausted and need a little bit of help. Write them a thank you speech to help them share with their sponsors to celebrate their achievements and say just that, thank you.

Remember to include things like what they did, why, and how the fundraiser is going. They have until Good Friday to continue to collect donations and thank everyone for their support, so you might want to include a last call out for donations as well.

As an extension, see if you can come up with some last minute fundraising ideas that they could try.