News & Events 

The idea

This fundraising business is hard work but our little group has also found it to be unbelievably rewarding. Our student group is planning and hosting events that people twice their age might struggle with and there’s an undeniable sense of pride that comes with that. It’s for this reason that, after the success of the 2017 Colour 4 Cambodia, we knew we had to have another go at hosting a colour run.

We set the date well in advance promising that this year we would be so organised and there would be no rushing around the day before (spoiler alert: there was a significant amount of rushing around the day before).

The Planning

This time we were lucky because we already had some idea of what we needed to do. Jamie promptly got onto organising the food for our BBQ and, of course, James from J & S Quality Meats was more than happy to help us out, not only with discounted sausages but also with some vouchers that we could use as prizes on the day.

We started hunting for sponsors, both minor and major and were shocked by the number of businesses who were willing to donate either cash or products. Abbott Kinney Brand, who make some awesome clothes, were the first to sign up but they were promptly followed by a host of others.

The flood of sponsoring businesses lead to us producing a range of thank you videos which proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are unlikely to become movie stars. They seemed to have longer blooper reels that actual videos. We’d be lying if we said they weren’t fun to make though.

What we really needed was a major sponsor, however, and we were thrilled when Zorich Group jumped on board and offered for Sportspower Elizabeth to partner with us. They donated a range of prizes which made it possible for us to offer vouchers to every participant, host a competitive race before the actual colour run and give prizes to all of the kids who completed our 1km event.

Rotary also got right behind us and offered us the use of their amazing BBQ trailer for the day. Their generosity had already saved the day and then they contacted us to make a cash donation to the event!

The Venue

We had held the last Colour 4 Cambodia at Stebonheath Park but wanted to have it somewhere more central this year. We contacted the Playford City Council who have been amazingly supportive and they offered to let us use Fremont Park. Since this is just down the road from our school it was absolutely perfect.

We planned an excursion so that we could go to the park and map out our whole event and were excited by how perfect the Fremont Park was. We also headed to Tunzafun (another sponsor) and made yet another video while also winning a prize for one of our group members who was too unwell to come with us. Lastly we went to Sportspower Elizabeth to do some work with their social media manager. It was a great experience for our group getting to work with a professional and seeing how they do their advertising.

The Real Work

When we got back to school we knew exactly what needed to be done and started making a list of everything that needed to be completed in the next two weeks. We were also becoming slightly anxious that the colour powder had not arrived yet (as Jordy very helpfully pointed out, it wouldn’t be much of a colour run if we didn’t have any colour).

We started by asking the tech teachers to make us a podium for the winners of our races and they came through for us in spectacular fashion. Not only was the podium perfect for the awards, it became the best place for everyone to pose for a photo. We cut up hundreds of tickets, organised bread (kindly donated by Bakers Delight in Elizabeth), made signs, wrote waivers, continued to contact businesses and, when the powder finally arrived, started the massive (and messy) task of moving it from buckets into bottles.

Just as we were starting to feel like we were on top of the situation, two major things happened. The first was that Bunnings contacted us to say that they had booked us in to do a BBQ, on the 8th of April, the day after the Sportspower Elizabeth Colour 4 Cambodia!! We debated whether we could do it or not but, given that it had taken almost 12 months for us to be granted a place with Bunninngs, decided that we would just have to make it a big weekend!

The next thing that happened was that the Zambrero head office contacted Megan and said that they would like to be involved. We were so excited and ended up naming the start/finish line after Zambrero to thank them for their continued contribution to our cause. Their donations to our trip so far have been so significant that they have almost paid for one whole student place (or one fifth of our entire fundraising target)!

The Day Before

Although we had tried hard to organise everything in advance, that didn’t stop us from having one massive day before the run. We needed to laminate signs, make pancake mix, collect sausages and bread, pack utes and cars full of equipment and spend a fair bit of time stressing that we had forgotten something.

We would really like to thank Robert, Maison and Kathy who helped us out on that day. We also need to thank our teachers who let us out of lessons and Zambrero who provided our lunch just when people were starting to get a little too ‘hangry’ to keep going.

One other person we need to thank is Aiden. We had one bucket of colour powder that, despite our combined efforts, we just hadn’t been able to open. We decided to name this bucket the ‘Playford International Sword in the Stone’ and issued the challenge to our entire school to see who could open it. Several students and teachers tried but luckily Aiden came to the rescue, winning himself a free Colour 4 Cambodia ticket and an Easter egg we had found in our top drawer!

The Colour 4 Cambodia

We arrived at Fremont park two hours before the event was set to start, friends and family in tow, and started setting up. After some concerning false starts, we managed to get the sound system working and music was soon blaring across the park. Alan from Rotary arrived to set up the trailer and the team from Coffee and Co started setting up their stall.

Pretty soon people started arriving to buy their tickets from Jade while Megan and Miss Woodrow ran the course to put out all of the markers. Rob and Ben manned the BBQ yet again and set about cooking the pancakes (they manage to make these amazingly circular and we still aren’t really sure how they do it).

Before long it was time to start our first event, the 4km race and we were excited to see the guys off and racing. After a long race in hot conditions Robert Knuckey came through as the overall winner. He scored himself a Tunzafun unlimited play card, Sportspower gift card and a free pair of shoes fitted in store at Sportspower Elizabeth. Rob O’Leary came in second after a hard run and won Sportspower and J&S Quality Meats vouchers. In third position was Aiden Fletcher who won a Sportspower gift card and Tunzafun unlimited play card.

Next up was the Kids Dash. It was a 1km race and, thanks to generous sponsorship from McDonalds, Sportspower Elizabeth and Tunzafun, we were able to give every participant a prize. We’re not sure who had more fun, the kids or the members of our group who got to run it with them.

Next we had the warm up which included both the Chicken Dance and the Macarena. Everyone had a great time dancing together before we attempted a world record! We had decided that we wanted to see if we could smash the record for most high fives in 30 seconds. The current record is 106 but, by our calculations, we managed 429! We’re still waiting for the official confirmation but, either way, it was an exciting way to start our colour run.

The last official thing we needed to do was start the colour run so we were really excited to see the big crowd on their way. We all split up and manned different colour stations and are also really grateful to our friends and family who did the same.

After a fantastic half an hour, we bought all of the powder back to the start and, after making a speech to thank our sponsors and helpers, we had a colour party with everyone. Our group had decided not to get powder on ourselves this year (the photos will show that we weren’t successful)!

 The Clean-Up

We were lucky to have our family and friends to help us pack up and before long, we had every thing stored in Miss Woodrow’s carport. We went home and managed to get all of the powder off ourselves before meeting up again to count the money.

We knew that this year had not been as big as our last event and therefore, made sure that we kept our expectations under control. It was these low expectations that made it all the more exciting when we realised we had raised over $1100!

Bunnings

We all got an early night on Saturday, knowing that we needed to be at Bunnings early to run the BBQ on Sunday. We arrived bright and early and full of enthusiasm (and more than our fair share of caffeine). Some people had been more successful that others when it came to fully removing colour powder with Jamie’s face still covered in yellow.

We got to work quickly setting up and cooking the BBQ. We were shocked with the number of people who were buying our food and it quickly became obvious that we were going to need more supplies, a lot more supplies. Luckily Tam Green, one of our teachers, turned up just in time to supervise while Miss Woodrow went shopping.

Later on we needed another 5kg of onions dropped down and we had to go shopping for sausages, drinks and bread two more times. By the end of the day we were exhausted but knew, even before we counted the money, that we had done well.

We cleaned up the BBQ as quickly as we could and then packed the car before sitting in a group to count the money. We were absolutely amazed when we found that we had made another $1400!! We certainly couldn’t have done this without the generosity of Bakers Delight Elizabeth, J&S Quality Meats or Foodland Munno Para who all donated and discounted products for us.

It was today that we realised just how much we had learned from the members of the Elizabeth Rotary Club who had allowed us to help with a number of their BBQ’s. As a group of 16 year olds we were able to manage cooking, customer service and money handling all day. Jordy took charge of the BBQ and used the lessons he had learned from Alan to keep the food coming. Jakob even told Miss Woodrow off when she wasn’t filling the esky in the same way that he’d learned working with Rotary. Now seems like a great time thank the Elizabeth Rotary Club, not only for the fundraising opportunities that they have given us but also the skills and values that they have taken the time to teach us.

Whats Next

When we got back to school we were immediately filled with enthusiasm for what we could do next. We decided to give ourselves a break from planning but that quickly went out the window when Jamie was left alone in the meeting room and, by the time we had all returned, she had started making lists of what we needed to do next!

 So now we are hard at work on our next two major fundraisers as well as some smaller activities. By the time we are ready to fly to Cambodia we know that we will have well and truly earned the experience. We hope to see you at our next event because, although raising the money is great, our group is starting to believe that most of the reward is in seeing people having a great time and realising just how much we can achieve.

Until our next event,

Peace out

Thanks to the following sponsors for their generous support:

Sportspower Elizabeth

 Zambrero

Tunzafun

J & S Quality Meats

The Rotary Club of Elizabeth

McDonalds Elizabeth

Foodland Munno Para

Bakers Delight Elizabeth

Adelaide Camping Hire

Rainbow Skye Design

The Nanny Diary

Cirkidz

Abbot Kinney