Once in a lifetime walk to fight a cruel disease
FMD’s Martin Hawkins, Senior Adviser and Director in our Brisbane office, and his wife Rhiannon, are preparing for a once in a lifetime walk. In September they’ll join a group from the MND and Me Foundation to walk the famed Camino Santiago trail, in the hope of one day saving more lives cut short by Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
Covering over 170km in two weeks, Martin and Rhiannon will depart Saint Jean Pied De Port on 2nd September and finish in Santiago De Compostela on 17th September to raise funds to fight this cruel disease.
MND destroys the nerve cells (neurones) in the brain and spinal cord that control the way we walk, talk, eat, swallow, and breathe. It remains a devastating terminal diagnosis with no effective treatment or cure.
While some people may live for years with slower-progressing forms of MND, like high profile AFL figure and Fight MND Founder, Neale Daniher, and perhaps most famously, physicist Stephen Hawking, most sufferers will lose their lives to the disease in an average of 2-4 years.
Martin is also participating in research studies as part of the control group for the BeLONG project. He recently underwent an MRI brain scan to assist researchers at the University of Queensland, who hope to learn more about long- surviving forms of MND to improve quality of life for those sufferers. Among them is Martin’s good friend Pat Kinsella, who is miraculously still battling MND over 10 years post-diagnosis.
Martin and Rhiannon also volunteered at the recent NRL game between the Cowboys and the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium, to raise funds and awareness for the Carl Webb Foundation and MND & Me. Carl Webb was a former Broncos (187 appearances) and Queensland Origin (12 games) player, who was diagnosed with MND at age 39 and died in December 2023, aged just 42.
The game set a new fundraising record with just short of $62k raised, helped by the sell-out crowd on the night and the close connection to the cause because of Carl’s story. It's another cruel twist of the disease and something researchers don’t yet fully understand, that MND seems to disproportionally impact athletes.
If you would like to support Martin and Rhiannon’s fundraising efforts, donate using the below QR code.
Stay tuned for fundraising updates and preparation for the big walk by following our Facebook page here.
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