This year the Manly Warringah District Cricket Club (the Waratahs) announced a new association with local youth homeless organisation, The Burdekin Association. The Foundation is now one of the Club’s official community partners as it looks to strengthen ties with the local area through their ‘Manly for Manly’ community program.

The Foundation is seen as an ideal community partner for Manly Cricket and the Club’s first activity as a partner is to register a Team in the 2019 Pub2Pub Charity Fun Run & Festival to raise funds for one of Burdekin’s initiatives, the Avalon Youth Hub.

‘Manly for Manly’ is an internal community program launched five years ago that will continue for the 2019/’20 season and beyond. It’s a program that aims to bring the club, players, administrators and supporters closer to the local community… and it’s going from strength to strength.

Club Community Manager, Phill Edwards said this week: “In order to develop our players as people, flourish as a club and become an integrated part of the area that we represent, a simple but effective community program is a must. While our club is primarily about playing cricket, we also see it as an opportunity to help develop young players into adulthood, being able to take responsibility for their own actions and understanding that some people’s lives are not as privileged as ours.”

The Burdekin Association is a Northern Beaches organisation that provides services for 12 to 24 year olds with the aim of preventing young people from becoming homeless. It also supports those who already are. It helps young people develop healthy relationships, provides them with stable accommodation and establishes goals to secure education or career pathways.

“We have asked all our players no matter how old, or whether male or female, to take part in this year’s Pub2Pub run to raise money for Avalon Youth Hub”, said Edwards. “We are hoping to put together a Team of 80 and already have 70 starters confirmed. Of that, 48 are male, 22 female, with ages ranging from 13 to 65”.

The team includes Phill’s high profile sons, Mickey and Jack, the first brothers since twins Steve and Mark Waugh in 2004 to be selected for NSW. Among the cricketers running the 13km course are a big group of teenagers including 13 year old Lauren Muriti and 14 year old Caitlin du Perez. Not to be outdone, ‘senior cricketers’ like 65 year old club stalwart Simon Lyon and 57 year old Ross Denny, will tackle the same distance.

In fact, more than half the Team will be running the original 13km course option from Dee Why Beach to Newport. A third of the Team will run the 6km from Warriewood while 13% will start at Mona Vale and complete the 3km course. The entire Team will run in the Club’s blue Manly Cricket training shirts, which will be a fantastic sight on the day.

The Club itself has decided to pay all Team registration fees, something the Board of this not-for-profit local sporting club had to closely consider. But in the end, the decision was made that it was the best course of action to take for Burdekin and the community.

And Phill Edwards said: “We have been getting great feedback from the players about the initiative and they are excited to be taking part. This is our first year entering the Pub2Pub as a club so we don’t really know how much money we’ll raise for the Avalon Youth Hub…but we hope it’s a lot!”

If you’d like to help Manly Cricket raise much-needed funds for Avalon Youth Hub, click here TO DONATE.

With less than 2 weeks to go ‘til Race Day entries for all three distance options – 13km, 6km and 3km – remain open at: pub2pub.com.au

• More information re. the Club’s Community Program can be found at https://manlycricket.com/about-manly-for-manly/
• And to find out more about the great work of The Burdekin Foundation, visit: https://www.burdekin.org.au