Story
We have joined forces with Hampton Downs, who are long time supporters of the John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation, to bring you the 2 Hour Racetrack Run. This unique event is open to runners and walkers of all ages and fitness levels the idea is simply to run as many laps of the 2.7 km National Circuit as you can in two hours.
This is a fundraising event for the John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation. Make your steps count by setting up a fundraising page and sharing it with your friends and family. There is no minimum fundraising commitment to participate in the 2 Hour Racetrack Run however we encourage all participants to set a fundraising goal because its fun and we know you will smash your target!
All funds raised will go to the John Walkers Find Your Fields of Dreams Foundation Community Swim programme for lower decile primary school children. The programme promotes Water Skills for Life.
Community Swim
In 2017 Water Safety New Zealand reported 92 preventable drownings has occurred, of which the highest percentage of fatalities was amongst the 1524 years of age group. To prevent drownings, swimming is an essential water skill for life, requiring many hours of learning and practice in the water.
It was identified that access to swimming instruction was not uniform across Auckland South. Since the transfer of operational budgets directly to school boards and the introduction of stricter requirements for school pool testing and operations, many schools have exited from their own pools and swimming programmes. There has not been a school built with a pool since 1976.
Even though school groups are offered free access to pools, especially for low socio-economic schools, the cost of arranging transport to a public pool is a significant barrier. In addition, instructor costs to support teachers who are not confident in teaching swimming also added barriers.
The Community Swim programme was developed and launched in 2008 to address these issues by providing FREE water skills for life lessons.
This includes pool entry, transportation to and from the school and instructors at no charge to teach school children the basic yet essential skills of swimming and to be safe in and around water.
Without the ongoing support of our funders, The Lion Foundation, Auckland Council, Water Safety New Zealand, Foundation North, Ted Manson Foundation and others, Community Swim would not have been able to deliver over 1,500,000 FREE lessons to date.