Christchurch Boys’ High School rowers raising money for Breast Cancer

Christchurch Boys’ High School rowers have an extra incentive to perform at this week’s Aon Maadi Cup secondary schools national rowing regatta.

When one of their part time coaches, leading rower Ben Mason, began raising money for breast cancer after his mother died from it several years ago, it sparked an idea within the schools’ rowing community.

That focus was sharpened earlier this year when the mother of one of its rowers, Cathy Hamer, was diagnosed with the illness.

Her son, Jimmy Dawson, is among the CBHS rowing contingent and they have raised about $7000, and rising, for the cause.

‘’The other boys wanted to show their support for him,’’ CBHS rowing manager Ricardo de Sousa, said.

‘’We just wanted to run with it and see what we could do.’’

The upshot has been impressive.

First there was the purchase of rowing suits, of which half the price goes to breast cancer research.

Having bought 53 of the distinctive pink rowing suits, just over $3000 has been raised.

Add in a funding page which is now close to $4000, and the campaign is rolling along.

‘’The idea was inspired by what Ben did,’’ de Sousa said.

‘’It was pretty easy to piggyback off what Ben’s done, and the boys look incredible in those pink suits.’’

CBHS have used the pink outfits at three regattas this season, with Cathy’s name sewn on beneath the logo.

However, Maadi Cup rules stipulate that schools have to use their traditional colours, in CBHS’ case blue and black vertical stripes.

So as partial compensation for that, the boys are wearing a pink ribbon on the school rowing strip, and have been using the pink suits in training in the couple of days leading up to the Maadi start at Lake Ruataniwha.

The funding page is running until next weekend, and the conclusion of the Maadi Cup, which began today.

The funding page can be found here

The aim is to have reached $5000 on the page, which would have the school handing on about $8000 for an extremely good cause.