The 2018 Stella Maris Pub2Pub Team with Happy Village Founder Mike Pawley

The Stella Maris College Team is again steaming ahead in its bid to retain the title of Largest School Team and once more take out the URM Schools Charity Challenge top prize.

Not only will the College win another Pub2Pub trophy to add to its bulging trophy cabinet, this year it will take home $2,000 courtesy of major Pub2Pub sponsor URM PLUS an additional 25% of all entry fees paid for Team Members.

Add this to the individual fundraising efforts of the students and teachers and there’ll be another sizeable donation going the way of the Happy Days Cambodian Village School. A charity started by local legend, Mike Pawley, Happy Days supports an entire rural village community in one of the poorest regions of Cambodia and provides education supplies and further education to impoverished kids. Over 1,000 rural village children living in the north-western town of Siem Reap are currently benefiting from Happy Days.

Mike Pawley and students of the Happy Days Village School in Cambodia.

Stella Maris has a long association both with the Pub2Pub and this wonderful cause. They’ve fielded the largest school team for a long time now, but this year faced a renewed challenge from a record number of schools (11) entering the big event. Avalon Public School is fielding a sizeable Team, but at time of writing, Stella looks to have a mortgage on the main prize again with a Team of 127 students so far.

Each year, Stella Maris dovetails the Pub2Pub with its Duke of Edinburgh program. The international ‘Duke of Ed.’ Awards aims to equip young people for life and work. Participants are required to complete four sections at each level: Voluntary Service, Skill, Physical Recreation and Adventurous Journey. The Pub2Pub ticks a lot of those boxes.

Though currently short of last year’s all-time record for largest Team ever across all categories (182.5), there’s still time for the College to better that remarkable tally. A huge thank you to all schools participating in this year’s Pub2Pub and an early congratulations again to the mighty Stella Maris College.