Family’s $8000 march for melanoma
SINCE the loss of Sally Everett’s beloved dad Lionel Mcguire to Melanoma in November 2021, her family has been hitting the pavement, raising a whopping $8000 as part of Mission Melanoma.
“Learning so much in such a brief period of time, it made our family committed to raising awareness of Melanoma and the importance of skin checks,” the Dubbo-born Narromine-resident said.
“The first part of our commitment to this was participating in Mission Melanoma over the month of March 2022, raising funds for the Australian Skin Cancer Foundation.”
Each day, the family walked as a combined team, clocking more than 230km throughout March.
Lionel’s youngest daughter, Carin Mcguire, and her own daughters braced rainy weather and flooding in Hawkesbury to meet their goals.
“When we started fundraising, we aimed for $3000. If this happened, we would get matching tattoos of the Australian Skin Cancer Foundation Logo,” Ms Everett said.
“Whilst Dad was not a fan of tattoos himself, we know this will be a lifetime way of keeping the conversation going. This will be happening in June 2022. It will also include Lionel’s granddaughters, Lily and Violet, (who will be) getting custom made temporary tattoos of the logo at the same time we get our permanent ones.”
When the goal was reached, the family decided to set a new milestone of $6600 in honour of the age at which Lionel died.
“We then exceeded that with our final tally raised being an incredible $8000,” Ms Everett said.
“We as a family are so grateful and thankful for all the support we received. Not only with our fundraising but those that listened
to our story, shared our story, and got a skin check.
“Over March as part of our fundraising, we ran a raffle with some incredible prizes, and we congratulate the winners and thank everyone that brought tickets.”
The raffle was drawn by Member for Dubbo Dugald Saunders on April 4, with prizes awarded to entrants up to ninth place.
“We will continue our mission to raise awareness and have conversations about Melanoma and work with the Australian Skin Cancer Foundation,” Ms Everett said.
“Whilst not always easy conversations if we can contribute to preventing another family seeing their loved one suffer, we will do what we can.”