Edging closer to $1 million

It has only been a month, but it now seems like I have been back home for much longer.  We are still getting things back to the rightful owners and finalising other items from additional fundraisers since returning home.  We had our finale ball on Friday 25^th September which was organised by a group of friends while I was away.  The girls thought at first that it would be a problem getting 300 people to attend the ball, but it was the complete opposite.  The tickets more or less sold out within the first week and we had to squeeze in extra tables to then cater for the sponsors who also came to the event.  We raised over $60,000 on the night from auctions and had an additional $40,000 donated in cheques from various groups and individuals.

I attended the Newport Arms Hotel as the guest speaker for the Liquor Trade Lunch, hosted by the Bayfield family.  The Liquor Marketing Group (Bottlemart) have been a great sponsor and with the Bayfields help, the luncheon raised over $160,000.  The day was a huge success and all the companies involved didn’t let us down on the day with some great donations.

Will we make the million dollars?  I still believe we can.  We still have money coming in from both of these functions mentioned and other groups that have been touched during my event around Australia are still collecting money.  Active Trees have also been raising money and we hope to get a further donation from their staff’s efforts in the next month.

Keep watching the website as I hope to see the million mark flash on the web page in the near future.

All the best, Craig

Where do the A2B4C funds go?

All money raised from Craig’s epic marathon go directly to support research at Children’s Cancer Institute Australia for Medical Research (CCIA).

CCIA is the only independant medical research institute in the country devoted to research into the causes, prevention, better treatments and cure of childhood cancer. The vision of the Institute is to save the lives of all children with cancer and to eliminate their suffering.

In November this year, CCIA will relocate to the Lowy Cancer Research Centre – a world-class, purpose built research facility on the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Campus in Randwick, Sydney. The new facility will more than triple the Institute’s laboratory research capacity from its current facility. This will enable CCIA to strategically build new areas of research which, along with the existing translational research capacity, will provide exciting opportunities to deliver accelerated and improved outcomes in the cure, treatment and prevention of childhood cancer.

Money raised from A2B4C will go towards:

Development of ‘personalised’ medicine for childhood cancer – using unique experimental models and advanced genomic approaches to tailor treatment protocols to the individual

Enhancing drug discovery capacity – building on CCIA’s rapidly growing capacity to develop novel therapeutic approaches to childhood cancer

Translation of research discoveries in the laboratory into greater benefits in the clinic – together with our clinical partners, we will build a pipeline to translate our research discoveries into better health outcomes for children with cancer.

Click here to make a donation towards Craig’s $1 million target for childhood cancer research.