ALONGSIDE three family members Josh Dunlop recently took part in Daniher’s Drive, travelling through regional Victoria to raise awareness and funds for motor neurone disease and raising a huge total of $26,140.
The team, named The Hoodwinkers is made up of Josh, his dad Paul Dunlop, uncle Jack Dunlop and cousin Shane Dunlop.
Jack first began participating in the event in 2017 when his good mate Bruce was diagnosed with MND. Sadly, Bruce passed away in 2018, but Jack has continued fundraising and Josh joined his uncle in the drive team in 2019.
Daniher’s Drive is a fundraising effort for the FightMND charity that seeks to find effective treatments and ultimately a cure for motor neurone disease (MND).
“Uncle Jack, he’s sort of the head of the team. He runs a lot of the fundraising, the raffles, and that. We kind of leave it to him to decide each year, because it’s a lot of work to do,” explains Josh.
Over the past seven years, the family have raised over $130,000 for FightMND.
They receive a lot of support from Alex Scott and Staff Korumburra, who Josh works for, as well as the Dandenong Club, due to family ties there and Westpoint Ford who Jack works for, and who
supplies the vehicle for the four-day drive.
The team also hold fundraising events, such as a barefoot bowls competition at the Dandenong Club and this year held a Big Freeze event in the Dalyston Football Club, raising over $6000 from that event alone.
“We’ve been pretty lucky with the sponsors,” said Josh.
“We’re pretty fortunate that we’ve got some good businesses that get around us as well.”
This year Daniher’s Drive kicked off with a launch event at Williamstown and 48 teams consisting of about 200 people drove to Bendigo for the first night, followed by Warrnambool and Lorne.
Community events were held along the way and teams were encouraged to stop into the smaller towns cafes and pubs and give their economies a bit of a boost.
“It’s a humbling experience, to be honest, you hear a lot of stories and everyone’s got some tie to MND and it brings into perspective what we’re raising money for. It’s sort of a celebration of all the work everyone does throughout the year to raise that money,” explained Josh.
“I try and do my bit by being designated driver so the others can have a few beers and get home safely each night. I like to just make sure that they can have a good time at the events.”
