Community Push Themselves for the Kids
What started as an idea for a physical and mental challenge for two Murrurundi friends became a whole community event earlier this month.
Dayna Hynes and Jenn Sanders created the Push48 Challenge based off an American trainer who was doing a four-mile run every four hours for 48 hours.
“We thought if we are going to do this, why don’t we turn it into a fundraiser for our local community,” Dayna said.
“We created the Push48 Challenge, spoke to the local school and started to fundraise with the backing of the Murrurundi Lions Club, without them we would not have been able to do this.”
They settled on raising funds for a swimming program for Murrurundi Public School, to compliment what is already run, as well as some mental health initiatives.
“The school saw the need as well, they felt that the kids could do with some more work with stroke correction,” Jenn said.
They ended up having 13 participants in the Push48 Challenge which ran from May 7 to 9, and the wider community were able to join in with a Mother’s Day Fun Run around town.
“Our goal was $7000 and we are over that which is awesome, we are going to discuss with the school what else we can do to boost the program or perhaps look into a health and wellbeing officer for the school which is something that they have missed out on this year.”
There is no denying the physical and mental strain that completing 72 kilometres of running or walking over 48 hours would have.
“We got rained on the first leg, which wasn’t great, we haven’t slept, we’ve been chasing our tails with collecting donations from the community,” Dayna told The Hunter River Times not long after completing the event.
“We were worried about missing an alarm, but it turned out we didn’t really sleep,” Jenn said.
“We thought the running would be the hard bit but what was really hard was trying to rest which you just can’t do.”
Dayna and Jenn are grateful for the support they have received with the event from the community, especially The White Hart Hotel who acted as a base for participants.