Hillcrest lasses step it up for welfare society

HILLCREST residents, Elizabeth Gallias and Kaylor Barker, have teamed up to participate in the ECR Big Walk to raise funds for the Pinetown Highway Child and Family Welfare Society this Sunday.

Elizabeth is a student and au pair and Kaylor has a degree in graphic design and is also currently an au pair. They enjoy keeping fit and active and love running races between five and 10 kilometres. They realised that they could use this love to help people in need. Normally each race has a designated charity. You run for and add your donation to the charity and the run raises awareness. These are their favourite types of races and they try to do as many as possible. They have run, walked and ‘boot-camped’ for many causes since they started running.

“We started running about two years ago and haven’t stopped. We aren’t professional athletes, but we love the races and are getting better and better, but more importantly it is our way of giving to those in need and this makes it so worth it,” said Elizabeth.

She added that their goal this year was to run their first 21 kilometre-race and support as many charities as possible. Their latest goal is to raise funds for the Pinetown Highway Child and Family Welfare Society.

“We are attempting to do this through completing the ECR Big Walk. We would like to receive a donation amount per kilometre and are running/walking the 20km, but any form of donation would be wonderful. We saw the ECR Big Walk as an incredible opportunity to support whichever charity we wanted to. However, deciding on which charity proved extremely challenging. So many people are in need and choosing just one is nearly impossible, so we will attempt to tackle them one at a time,” said Kaylor.

Elizabeth said her mom introduced her to Ellen Attwell, the fundraiser for the Pinetown Highway Child and Family Welfare Society, as well as the wonderful work she and her team does.”I am passionate about children and I love that this organisation shares a hand to brighten the future of these children and families,” said Elizabeth.

The Pinetown Highway Child and Family Welfare Society is an NGO/NPO that is volunteer-driven. They provide child protective services with the aim to promote, protect and enhance the safety, well-being and healthy development of children.

“At their branch they support disadvantaged children through holiday programmes and life skills training and offer counselling and support for children who have been abused or neglected. All of these services are free of charge. They are an incredible organisation and we would love to help them,” they added.

Help the girls achieve their goal in raising funds for the welfare organisation. You can contact Ellen Attwell on 084 016 8913, e-mail lizziecharlie1@gmail.com, kaylor.barker@gmail.com or deposit contributions into the bank account of the Pinetown Highway Child and Family Welfare Society: FNB, account number 5138 1449 0569, Pinetown branch, reference: ECR Big Walk.