Ultimate tribute: Australia’s surf lifesaving heroes celebrated in Cronulla’s ‘Walk of Fame’
See the tribute to local surf lifesaving legends that has appeared at Cronulla Beach, honouring the everyday Australian heroes giving their time to protect beachgoers over the years.
Local Sport
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A ‘Walk of Fame’ has been unveiled on Cronulla Beach promenade to celebrate the continuous efforts of volunteers surf life savers around Australia.
The ‘Walk of Fame’, unveiled on December 9, is part of a campaign between Surf Life Saving Australia and DHL Express, standing for ‘Discovering Hidden Legends’.
As a part of this campaign, for the next week Cronulla Beach promenade will feature a display of yellow circles on the ground, featuring stories and images of volunteer surf lifesavers through the years.
“The Discovering Hidden Legends campaign celebrates the individuals who make up such an important part of the Australian community,” Surf Life Saving Australia CEO Adam Weir said.
“Last season, more than 1.3 million patrolling hours assisted in keeping people safe on our beaches, and all of this is thanks to our hidden legends.
“The incredible support of DHL helps to deliver safer beaches to more than 500 million beachgoers annually, and this Walk of Fame helps to recognise some of these legends.”
Present at the unveiling of the ‘Walk of Fame’ on Friday morning was Australia pro surfer and former world champion Joel Parkinson, who was grateful that surf lifesavers were getting this great recognition.
“I feel bad that we, as a country, haven’t done this before,” Parkinson said.
“There’s that many volunteers that turn up every day and over the holidays … it’s amazing to do that many rescues and prevent that many deaths, knowing when a rescue is going to happen before it actually happens.”
The ‘Discovering Hidden Legends’ campaign looks to celebrate the everyday Australians playing such an important role in the community, such as the surf lifesavers.
Every summer, nearly 190,000 volunteers give up their time to patrol and run 315 surf lifesaving clubs across the Australian coast.
As a result of the contributions of these volunteers, approximately 11,000 rescues, 60,000 first aids, and 1.65 million preventative actions take place annually to keep the public safe at the beach.
Each circle on the ‘Walk of Fame’ contains a QR code, allowing the public to scan and read more stories about the individuals featured, which Joel Parkinson sees as a great opportunity to learn more about some of the great Australians on display.
“A lot of the time you see these people as a group and not as individuals, so it’s great to see,” Parkinson said.
“Some of these guys have spent 20 years pulling up the shed door every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday.
“One thing I’ve noticed behind every surf club, there’s always really good characters, great humans, there’s some real Aussie larrikin style with a great sense of humour.”
Joining Parkinson at the unveiling on Friday were a number of local surf lifesavers and junior nippers from the locality, who had a chance to be a part of the unveiling of the everyday heroes that these young Australians are growing into.
“We thought it was time to say thank you,” said Gary Edstein, CEO and Senior Vice President of DHL Express.
“They’re our friends, our neighbours and members of our community whose work often goes unseen.
“We are all safer thanks to the critical lifesaving work of these incredible volunteers.”
The ‘Walk of Fame’ will be on display on Cronulla beach promenade from Friday the 9th to Thursday the 15th of December, and Joel Parkinson encourages everyone to come down and thank the many volunteer surf lifesavers of Australia by seeing the campaign.
“Give them a pat on the back and say thanks if you’re down at the beach, especially if someone’s put 20 years of their life into keeping us safe.”
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