Butterfly Fun Run 2021

The Miscarriage Matters Butterfly Fun Run was held on Sunday the 10th of October, 2021 at The Groynes, Christchurch, during Baby Loss Awareness Week. Every year international Baby Loss Awareness Week is recognised from the 9th to the 15th of October.

Walkers begin the Butterfly Fun Run

It was a beautiful thing to see so many people coming together in recognition of miscarriage. There were more people than last year with 185 participants (up from 100 participants last year). We had some really great prizes thanks to our wonderful sponsors! The weather was a little overcast when our volunteers arrived in the morning but the sun came out during the event. Participants were split into two groups, 'walkers' and 'runners', due to the Covid-19 restrictions limiting outdoor groups to 100. We had The Coffee Cart on site and Maria from The Butterfly Musketeers, who gave out swan plants. There was a butterfly blackboard for people to write messages or the names of their lost babies on. We also had a display of our care packages and the opportunity sponsor a care package and write a message in a card. Our chairperson, Aleisha Black, said some words and our event organiser, Corrine Christian, also spoke. Then Jaya Wilson took everyone for an upbeat warm up and Hilary, from The Breeze Canterbury, gave us a countdown to start the run. At the finish line everyone received a banana thanks to Dole and a CookieTime cookie.

We hold the Butterfly Fun Run as a fundraiser but it is more importantly about creating a miscarriage community through positive action. It really felt like a community this year. It was a cathartic experience - to write on the butterfly blackboard, to do this run (or walk) for yourself and for your babies, amongst all these other people who were doing the same thing.

Prizes:

PLACES

$100 Christchurch Casio Voucher - First Runner Home

$100 Christchurch Casio Voucher - First Female Home

Large CookieTime Pack - Second Runner Home

Small CookieTime Pack - Third Runner Home

First second and third placed women and men

BEST DRESSED

Small CookieTime Pack - Zoe Wallace (adult prize)

$50 Warehouse Voucher from Rangiora Warehouse - Rainbow Baby Outfit (kid prize)

Hilary Muir from The Breeze Canterbury had the difficult job of choosing our best dressed prize winners

SPOT PRIZES

Cloud 9 Float Club $95 float voucher - Rob Davies

Barkers of Geraldine $125 Gift Basket - Sarah Park

Inc Design Store $150 Gift Box - Courtney Georgeson

Streeter & Turner $100 Travel Voucher - Leanne Mitchell

The George High Tea for Two - Sonya White

New World Redwood $100 Hamper - Sacha McGregor

Black Cat Cruises Quail Island Family Pass - Anne Herd

VIRTUAL SPOT PRIZES

Three Dr Bugs Popcorn Bumper Boxes went to:

Hannah Dollery (Wellington)

Heidi Johansen (Papamoa)

Katie Nugent (QLD, Australia)

The butterfly blackboard

A big thank you to everyone who came along on the day and to our amazing team of volunteers. Special mention to Simon Heatley, Lisa Heatley, Barbara Frazer and Linda Skelton for their time, to Sport Canterbury for supplying us with their race clock, to the Christchurch City Council for their help and understanding through changing Covid requirements and to The Groynes park ranger xx

The volunteers

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