Variety Trillian Bash Raises Over $150,000

Variety Trillian Bash Raises Over $150,000

Quirky convoy covers 2000km in aid of Kiwi kids

In the 25 years since it was launched, the Variety Trillian Bash has travelled some 70,000km of New Zealand roads and visited 100,000 kids at countless schools and hospitals – as well as those the quirky convoy passes as they wave from roadsides along the rural routes it travels.

It’s raised nearly eight million dollars along the way, without counting the numberless ‘giveaways’ carried by its crews. And it’s spawned many touching stories of kids whose lives have changed thanks to the work done by Variety – The Children’s Charity, and the ordinary New Zealanders who do an extraordinary job raising the funds that make it happen.

It’s those stories which keep these men and women working to raise the donations required to enter the Bash, a road rally that’s partly a ‘thank you’ for that work, partly a means of delivering grants and entertainment to kids around the country, and partly a colourful way to help get the message across for a charity that grew from entertainment roots.

This year ended with a function at MOTAT, and one of those stories.

When Mark Wilson was born with cerebral palsy, his parents were told he would never walk and talk, but they started an intense therapy programme that got him mobile, and communicating. Bullied at school, he took up competitive sport and represented New Zealand at the Paralympics in athletics and table tennis. A Variety Gold Heart Scholarship helped make it happen, and came with a mentor, Mark Hellyer, who also fund-raises for Variety through the Variety Trillian Bash.

Mark is now in his third year of a business management degree, and he’s a ‘Basher’, himself raising funds to help others.

“Mark’s story underlines what strikes us every year,” says Bash Director Murray ‘Mojo’ O’Donnell, “I’m not talking the great job done by the fund-raising teams who enter the Bash, or even the grants made to kids, but the fantastic job many parents do when faced with seemingly insurmountable hurdles. And how far a kid can go if given a hand to step up to the plate.”

Folk like Mark inspire the Variety Trillian Bash fund-raising crews each year, and 2015’s 25th Anniversary event added “At least” $150,000 to the charity’s coffers, says O’Donnell, “and around 2000km to the vehicles that take part, even before they head home,” he says.

This year’s event began in New Plymouth on Saturday March 7 with the donation of a specialized trike to 18-year-old Sydnie Maxwell, travelled via Whanganui and Ohakune, Waiouru and Wellington, Masterton, Napier and Taupo, Tauranga, Cambridge and Thames, to finish in Auckland with grants for a special swing for a 12-year-old with a mental age of two, $750 for a dyslexia assessment a teenager’s mother couldn’t afford, $9864 for instruments to help Auckland Philarmonia work with 250 disadvantaged children in Otara, and a Ford Sunshine Coach for Keith Park School.

The 30 teams and 180 people in the classic convoy had visited schools on every weekday to unload magicians and entertainers, and to hand over Canon printers and hats, balloons and toys, and even to conduct a working bee at a school on Matakana Island, a ferry ride away from Tauranga.

The teams now head home as far afield as Whangarei and Christchurch, Tauranga and New Plymouth, as Mr O’Donnell begins the final count of how much the event has raised this year for disadvantaged Kiwi kids,¬ and starts to plan next year’s event.

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