Campbelltown to host 24 Hour Fight Against Cancer
It is the ‘fight’ which unites the Macarthur region year after year, with the extraordinary community fundraiser hoping to raise $300,000 for local health services.
Macarthur
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It is the ‘fight’ that unites the Macarthur region.
More than 5000 feet are expected to hit Campbelltown Athletics Track next weekend for the 15th rendition of the 24 Hour Fight Against Cancer.
The volunteer-run event, launched by the late former Campbelltown councillor Fred Borg in 2005, is unashamedly local with close to $5 million raised for cancer-fighting equipment in the Macarthur region since its inception.
Spring Farm’s Louise Sparkes-Howarth, who has been involved with the Fight since 2017 as a participant and now a sponsor, said it was her family’s exposure to cancer which prompted her to take action.
“Cancer is confronting,” she said. “My grandmother passed away from breast cancer and lung cancer.
“My youngest sister is a brain cancer survivor. My aunty is a breast cancer survivor.
“When my mum said (in 2017) ‘I have been diagnosed with breast cancer’ it really hit home that cancer is everywhere.
“We just have to band together as a community and embrace the charity.”
The emotion-charged event is responsible for raising close to $300,000 annually for equipment at Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centre, the Oncology Ward and Paediatric Ambulatory Care Unit at Campbelltown Hospital and Camden Hospital Palliative Care Unit.
Campbelltown councillor and 24 Hour Fight Against Cancer chairman Warren Morrison said this year would be a unique personal experience after his sister Debbie passed away from breast cancer last December.
“It will touch the heart a little differently this year because it has come closer family-wise,” he said.
Mr Morrison said the 24 Hour Fight had a special place in the community’s heart.
“The people in the community realised we were doing it out of love,” he said. “That we were giving that little bit extra to a public hospital system to help support families through the most difficult of times.”
The first lap of the community event, which is open to everyone, will take place at 9.45am on Saturday, October 19 before a range of entertainment and activities will take place across the day and night.
The Reflection Ceremony will take place at dusk on the Saturday.
To register, click here.
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