A message from Mike Toner — “When I was a 19 year old student in Ireland, I witnessed someone who was badly visually impaired, walk into a floating staircase and injuring themselves pretty badly. I got very upset by it, and it left me thinking a lot about how challenging life must be, being blind or visually impaired. I made a decision that night that that I would always try and support the blind or visually impaired community where possible.
As soon as I heard about the The Fred Hollows Foundation, I was blown away by the fact that they could restore people's eyesight who have been blinded by cataracts disease, for as little as $25. In 2012, I contacted them, and told them that our dance music community would like to support them by organizing gigs, with all proceeds going to the foundation, and then in 2017, we started organizing some of our dance music community to take part in marathon runs, while raising money in the form of sponsorship for the foundation.
For Quick as Thieves, we have 300 of not just Melbourne, but Australia's dance music community taking part and our goal is to raise $500,000 for the foundation. With the assistance of a guide (my great friends Dustin Guilloux-Cooke and Jacob Anton Malmo), I will be trying to complete a full marathon blindfolded. This has been a super challenging year for our industry, but our community has banded together to not only raise money, but to support each other in both mental and physical health.
Thanks to Film Catcher for filming and Callum Padgham for editing.
Entertainment
Mike Toner Blindfolded Marathon for The Fred Hollows Foundation