Connor's Erg finishes with massive funds raised

EUROA locals have come together over the past month to raise much needed funds and awareness for children with brain cancer, totalling $58,602 from their fantastic efforts. The Euroa Gym hosted the Connor's Erg Challenge, hosted by the Robert Connor Dawes (RCD) Foundation, and worked with various local businesses, organisations, sports teams, and individuals to raise the amount they have. The rowing challenge and foundation are champions for battling paediatric brain cancer which kills more children than any other disease by funding research, care and development projects, backing the science to end paediatric brain cancer and supporting patients in the meantime. The Euroa Gym owner Daniel Godsmark spoke before this year's edition saying they entered a team for the first time in February last year, after the event had typically been based in the United States. "The team set a new fundraising world record for Connor's Erg last year, raising $45,531, while rowing 300km in a single day across three rowing machines," he said. "This time the TEG team will be aiming to break their own Connor's Erg fundraising world record, aiming to raise over $50,000 for RCD Foundation as the team rows 1000km for the day." Mr Godsmark was pleased to confirm that they had smashed their $50,000 target and had plans to back it up again next year. "The total was $58,602 which was pretty unbelievable," he said. "To top last year was amazing, we were stoked with that. "The community really got around it, clubs and groups from across the region came and participated. "The organiser Liz Dawes came up from Melbourne and we had politicians like Annabelle Cleeland join in too. "We had over 100 people jump on a rower and get involved. "We have so many people we want to thank for donating and getting around it." Brain cancer kills more children in Australia than any other disease, which many local Euroa residents are aware of, and have seen the tragedy of personally. Event organisers Dustin and Shannon Perry lost their daughter Chloe to brain cancer in 2017, and many locals will also know another little Euroa girl Chelsea who is currently in remission after being treated. It's an issue many Euroa residents care deeply about. Chelsea's mother Tracey Johnson explained just how important the RCD Foundation was for their family. "The foundation has been imperative to my daughter's treatment – if it wasn't for the foundation her treatment would have been far more invasive," she said. Tracey said the foundation had enabled more specified treatments for particular brain cancers and also noted the incredible work Dustin had completed in attracting more Australian government funding for brain cancer research. She said it was incredibly important to also continue to work on methods of early detection as Chelsea had been a healthy six–year–old before being diagnosed. "We need to continue to support and hopefully with more research we can try and find earlier markers of brain cancers and hopefully get to a point one day when treatment is even less invasive," Tracey said.