Werribee Rotary Club’s annual charity walk has raised almost $200,000 for the Royal Children’s Hospital in the past seven years.
The club is thrilled with the success of its fundraising walks, which have raised just over $191,000 and become one of its biggest annual events.
Last month, Werribee Rotary presented the hospital’s Victorian Paediatric Palliative Care Program with a $35,000 cheque, raised through a nine-day, 200-kilometre trek from Wangaratta to Werribee in October last year.
Werribee Rotarian and children’s hospital committee member Liat Watson became an advocate for the palliative care program after her son, Mitchell, died from Type C Niemann-Pick disease in 2008 at the age of seven. The disease affects a person to the point where the sufferer gradually “un-learns” basic skills such as walking and talking.
Geoff Smith, of Werribee Rotary, said the money raised had been used for wheelchairs and other medical items to make life “more bearable for kids who are suffering”.
“This huge effort to help came out of the tragic end of Mitchell’s young life,” he said.
“The words of his mother, Liat, still resonate … when a woman loses her husband she’s called a widow, a husband losing a wife is a widower and when children lose parents they become orphans, but there’s no word to describe parents who lose their child.
“Liat decided to do something to help and rallied other mums and Rotarians to the task.”
