George Hunter, of Mermaid Beach uses isolation ‘challenges’ to raise thousands of dollars for charity

Boredom has spawned a selfless fundraiser for this kind-hearted Gold Coast man.

BOREDOM has spawned a fundraiser for this Gold Coast man with a golden heart – plus plenty of cleaning up to keep him occupied, too.

George Hunter, of Mermaid Beach, started taking on wacky “challenges” while he was bored working from home, inspired by viral internet video crazes like making cereal blindfolded, high jumping over stacked toilet rolls, swallowing a whole frankfurt and attempting to drink Coke and Mentos together (do not try this at home, just Google it).

Then last week Mr Hunter came across the Albatross Nippers, an initiative helping disabled children experience surf life saving.

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George Hunter was getting lots of feedback on Instagram for his challenges and realised it would be a good way to raise money for charity. He’s pictured at home doing the blindfolded cereal challenge. Picture: Jerad Williams

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He soon learned he could put his talents for making a fool of himself to good use.

“Two months ago I was sitting at home, thinking this corona thing is going to go for a long time,” he said.

“I thought ‘I’ll just do a challenge’. So I put a toilet paper roll into a cup of water and tried to drink the cup of water, and posted it to my Instagram story.

“Every day I did something and … some of these challenges are taking over my life.

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George has raised more than $8,000 for the Albatross Nippers and lost an eyebrow in the process, all for a good cause. Picture: Jerad Williams

“I was scrolling Facebook and I saw a video for this charity, Albatross Nippers.

“Some days on my (Instagram) stories I’d get 250 replies on my Instagram.

“If all of these people are watching it, I could do it to make some money for them.”

He decided that Monday this week, the 50th day of challenges, was the day to encourage people to make donations to his GoFundMe page for Albatross Nippers.

Mr Hunter put up dollar values for challenges and asked people to tell him what challenge they were donating for – for example, he would do the toilet paper straw challenge for a $5 donation, a watermelon elastic bands challenge for $80, or pegs on face for $15.

He is also running 1km for every $100 raised on Saturday.

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George could be running 100km on Saturday. Picture: Jerad Williams

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“I thought I’d raise $500 or $1000. In the first day it was almost $3000. I put it up Saturday, now I’m at $7000. It’s just getting more and more crazy,” he said.

“The boards they (the Albatross Nippers) want to buy cost them $1400 each. I thought maybe I’d help get them half a board – now they’re going to get five boards.

“I thought it was only going to be 1000 bucks, so I thought I’d run 10 or 15km max maybe.

“I could be running or walking 100k. That’s two-and-a-half marathons.”

Head to @george__hunter to watch his challenges and donate to the Albatross Nippers fundraiser.