David Burke (pictured below) is the Assistant Learning Leader, Head of Mathematics and Head of House (Loyola) at Xavier College. He has been involved in fundraising for JMB Foundation for more than eight years, and to date his activities have helped raise more than $6,000 for the Foundation. David and his wife, who works at Carey, are good friends with a number of other Carey senior school staff who get together every Friday morning to go running, and this gave David the idea to do something to promote JMB Foundation.
A regular Melbourne Marathon runner, when David heard he could join the JMBF team and both support the Foundation and raise awareness for the cause, he thought, “Why not?” From there, David decided to go one step further. Hearing too often of “one punch” victims reported in the media, he decided to do something at Xavier that would help JMBF and at the same time serve to educate Xavier boys.
David’s idea was to run 100 laps of the school oval – that’s 33 kms! – and invite boys to join in, or donate funds, or both. It turned out to be a success on both levels. In the first year more than $600 was raised, but more importantly, the boys really loved being involved.
At some stages, 200+ boys were running laps of the oval with him. It gave David an opportunity to promote JMB Foundation and Step Back Think. From there, he created some minor class discussions/ shared YouTube clips from JMB Foundation, and created some lessons on the theme and it became an annual event.
This fundraising event raises awareness of the importance of looking after your mates and thinking before you act, and gets 100’s of kids running around the oval for 3 hours. Helping young men to lead healthy and active lifestyles, and educate them.
In all it became a win, win, win!
