Despite very heavy rain on the weekend, a record-breaking 780 trucks participated in last Sunday’s Illawarra Convoy for Kids, raising in excess of $1million for the children’s cancer charity Camp Quality. The generous support of the Illawarra road transport community continued to grow in the ninth year that the convoy was held.
The trucks were lead through Wollongong by 872 motorcycles , some of which were ridden by riders and pillion passengers dressed as characters ranging from Sesame Street’s Elmo to Batman – keeping with them theme that the event is all about helping sick children.
Thousands of people lined the route from Appin to Albion Park and 6,000 attended the post convoy celebrations that included performances by Australian Idol winners Damien Leith and Guy Sebastian.
As with previous convoys, the honoured position of the convoy’s lead truck was decided by an on-air auction held last week on local radio station i98FM and the successful bidder was local company Coastal Windows, which raised $114,000, to which Rob Starcic from the company later contributed an extra $6,000 to “round it up to $120,000.” Rob, who only obtained his truck licence during 2013, actually hired the Kenworth he used for the convoy.
Including Rob’s contribution, the trucks and bikes had already raised $800,000 by participating in the annual event and organisers are confident that the final tally will exceed the $1 million mark.
The weather forced the abandonment of the show and shine that was to be held at the final destination of the Croome Road Sporting Complex, with the ground just too soft and muddy for vehicles to negotiate. The boggy conditions also meant that the curtain-sider trailers provided by Murrells Freight lines and Ross Transport to be used as the stage could not be removed as planned.
“We don’t know when we are getting our trailers out, but that doesn’t matter,” Alan Ross told CRTNews. Alan is one of the driving forces behind the event and is already planning an even bigger tenth anniversary convoy for 2014.