MARK Rees and his support team from Rotary Club Frankston Sunrise have banded together to take flight at the Moomba birdman rally and raise over $70,000 to help children have access to clean drinking water.
Mr Rees, the father of last year’s king of Moomba Jimmy Giggle, was flying to raise money to buy SkyHydrants.
“When I saw the Birdman title was more about fundraising than actually flying I knew I had a chance to pull it off. The Rotary Club of Frankston Sunrise and I set a target of $15,000 and ultimately raised $16,000,” Mr Rees said.
“Under the rules of the Birdman Rally each $500 raised earns you a point which is added to the distance you fly. I only flew 7 meters but had 32 fundraising points. The total of 39 was enough to win.”
Mr Rees said that purchasing SkyHydrants would help “filter dirty water into clean drinkable water at 1000 litres an hour.”
“Rotary clubs purchase these SkyHydrants and send them to schools in third world countries. The end result is that children attend school more often as they are not so regularly sick from their local water. As a consequence they get a better education and hopefully a better life,” he said.
“$5000 buys one SkyHydrant so $16,000 will buy three. However the really good news is that the city of Melbourne donates a further $10,000 for winning the Birdman Rally plus there’s another $9,000 donated which wasn’t officially counted. This total of $35,000 will then be matched by a Rotary Global Grant to become $70,000.