Even though Bree did not personally know these police members it still touches the heart deeply to have a Victoria Police colleague killed in the line of duty.
“When I started work at the Cobram CIU office three years ago I was introduced to a lovely group of ladies who all ran together 2-3 mornings a week in Yarrawonga and due to being a regular runner myself I thought what better way to meet the locals and continue my training in a new and foreign town,” Ms George said.
“So from then on I met with this bunch Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5.30am where we would run for an hour, socialising along the way and then sneak in a quick coffee before starting our day.
“When I mentioned to this group at the end of April that I was going to join the Run 4 Blue challenge and run 159.485km for the month of May (which is the combined badge numbers of the four fallen police members) all the ladies were keen to join me, and not only just them but other members of their families also joined the challenge.
“In the end I had 30 people from Yarrawonga/Mulwala who signed up for the challenge and all set a goal for the month. Some decided to run the 159.485km with me, some decided on 120km, 100km, 80km or 50km and I had two ladies who set the massive challenge of walking 200km for the month.”
A lot of the exercising was completed by the individuals or in groups of two due to the COVID19 restrictions, but it was great to have the restrictions change two weeks ago so the group could run in groups of 10 or less again (with social distance of course).
“At the end of each week in May everyone would text me through their kms for the week and I started a spreadsheet to track our kms for the month,” Ms George said.
“I’m very proud to say that everyone in my group that joined the challenge met their goal and we covered 3264km running/walking around Yarrawonga/Mulwala for the month.
“The Run 4 Blue organisers ended up raising $374,193.41 for Police Legacy which supports the families of fallen members and it’s great to know that I was able to contribute and influence others to contribute to a small part of this.”
