FORMER rugby league great and media identity Mark Geyer has been among a 10-strong contingent walking from Bathurst to Blaxland this week.
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The group, walking for the Great Walk Foundation, raise money for a variety of community organisations, which this year included the headspace organisation, which on Tuesday received a $10,000 donation from the foundation.
Every year for the past nine years the group has been walking to raise funds for charities including Nepean Hospital Infants Ward, Greater Community Transport, Lithgow Hospital, Katoomba Hospital, Panthers on the Prowl and the Lifestart Co-Op.
Since its inception the Great Walk Foundation has raised a staggering $788,162.00 – and members plan to keep going.
“In the first year they ran to Orange, and in the second year they went from Blaxland to Bathurst, but it was a bit hard, so we turned it around so we got to walk down the hills, not up them,” Geyer joked.
He said the best thing about the foundation was there were no overheads, so all money raised goes directly to the charity organisations.
Items purchased over the years include new beds for hospitals and humidicribs for the Children’s Ward at Nepean Hospital.
Geyer said headspace was chosen to receive a donation because of the hospitality Bathurst shows the group every year, and because of the work headspace does.
“Scotty McAllister [of the Knickerbocker Hotel] puts us up every year for free, he’s a great friend of the walk,” he said. “And depression is something that affects a lot of people in the community, either directly or indirectly.”
Great Walk Foundation donations are accepted by the National Australia Bank.