THE WALK
A Celebration of Families and Volunteers
The Walk
The Friendship Circle Walk began in 2009 with a small dedicated committee, a handful of business partners and an idea to build a self-perpetuating annual community fundraising and awareness event.
Since then, the Friendship Circle Walk has become a popular event attracting over 1,500 people and raising around $200,000 per year to support programs for children with disabilities. Attendance and participation continue to grow, and even through COVID the community connected virtually to celebrate this day raising even more funds than before to support this local need.
The Friendship Circle Walk, besides being an integral event on the local Eastern Suburbs community calendar, forms an important part of Friendship Circle’s mission.
The Walk's Significance
- The Walk is a special time for the wider Friendship Circle community to celebrate and support our families and volunteers.
- New teen volunteers report that their first exposure to Friendship Circle was the amazing time they had joining the Walk! In this way, the event has a great awareness effect that helps us generate a steady stream of new volunteers.
- The Walk is a platform for families with children with disabilities to fundraise for the programs that they and other families rely on - thus building a user-support system for sustainability.
- The Walk is a vehicle for us to acknowledge our generous and kind supporters and in a small way return some of the goodwill that has been extended to us with branding and marketing opportunities.
This Year's Theme
This year, our Walk theme is 'Friendship'. Friendship is at the root of everything we do, and truly what Friendship Circle is all about. We provide opportunities for friendship and connections among children and young people with and without disabilities. At our programs, these friendships start to form, and after a short while, they often extend beyond Friendship Circle. As you will be able to read in the Stories from our participants and volunteers, they catch up for a coffee on weekends, call or message each other regularly, and chat about their shared interests. And friendships not only happen amongst the kids and young people. Often, parents get to know each other as they drop off their child at a program or meet up at one of our Parent Nights. Over the years, we have been able to create our own inclusive community where everyone feels welcome.
To celebrate these special connections, we have decided to focus on 'friendship' as this year's theme, represented by its AUSLAN sign. You will see the sign throughout our social media and emails over the coming weeks.
