Four middle aged mates, including a Kurrajong man, have come together and created ‘Dags4life’, and are striving to help fund research into extending life expectancy and ultimately finding a cure for brain cancer.
Two of their children have fought medulloblastoma, an aggressive and malignant childhood brain tumour.
Mark lost his son Dean recently to brain cancer at the age of 21. He was first diagnosed with the cancer at 10 years old.
Dean’s wish was for his dad to help, in some way, to help give brain cancer research the funding it needed.
Three members of the group, Garry Smith of Kurrajong, Mark Hughes and Stewart Scott will undertake the challenge of a 420km trek on the Hume and Hovell track through the bush from Yass to Albury in just 22 days to raise awareness and money for Charlie Teo’s Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.
They will set out on October 17 and hope to be back on November 7.
Mark said he was getting ready for the trek and was mentally prepared.
‘‘I’m pretty excited but I think it will be pretty tough,’’ he said.
‘‘We have been training really hard for it and there is a lot of motivation there’’.
Mark said they hoped to raise $50,000 by the end of the trek.
They are currently sitting at just over $30,000 raised.
The Federal Government has only given 3 per cent of the funding to brain cancer research since 2012. ‘Dags4life’ are holding a trivia night on Friday, October 10 with friends and family.
Donations from local businesses would be greatly appreciated so a raffle can be held on the night. Call Jessica Bell on 0412 166 779 for details on how to make a donation.
■ For more details on the group visit http://dags4life.org/.
