THIS YEAR’S TOTALSPORTS TWO OCEANS MARATHON WINNERS: KIDS AND PETS

The Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon is back after two years of COVID-enforced absence. But while the world’s top athletes prepare for their gold medal attempts, there’s a very different type of race taking place on the event’s official online fundraising platform.

With the backing of the Two Oceans Marathon Initiative charity programme, participants are using the GivenGain fundraising platform, launched by South African brothers Johannes and Jaco van Eeden more than 20 years ago, to raise money for charity.

As has become the norm for this great race, participants and event organisers will again be supporting dozens of local and national charities – and this year, causes focused on kids and animals are shaping up to be the big winners.

Meet the fundraisers

With less than a month to go until race weekend, health and children’s charities along with animal shelters are leading the non-profit pack: Rare Diseases South Africa, which supports the 1 in 15 South Africans living with a rare disease, many of them children; the Cape of Good Hope SPCA, South Africa’s oldest animal welfare organisation; and the CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation SA, the only nationwide charity providing comprehensive support for kids with cancer.

Rare Diseases South Africa sits at the top of the leaderboard thanks to a heroic solo effort by local supporter Cailey Low. For Cailey, fundraising in the Totalsports Two Oceans Half Marathon is a very personal mission.

“Rare diseases not only affect the person who is living with the disease, but it affects everyone in their lives,” says Cailey. “My daughter will never go for a run in the forest as I love to do. She’ll never know what it’s like to sing and dance with joy. Rare Diseases South Africa are close to my heart as they advocate for people like her.”

Cailey has already raised more than 15 times her initial fundraising target thanks to generous donors – but she’s far from the only fundraiser making waves at the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon this year. Neil Watson is aiming to support children and dogs at the same time by fundraising for The Underdog Project, who bring together vulnerable children and untrained shelter dogs for group therapy.

Neil is going for a pair of ambitious targets: a speedy half marathon time of under 90 minutes, and R5 000 raised for charity, enough to provide 40 therapy sessions. While his race time is still up in the air, he’s already well on the way to his fundraising goal, having already collected more than R4 200.

Bringing giving back
The Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon organisers hope that this year’s races will be a return to fundraising form after the pandemic. In 2019, the event became the first ever to raise more than 1 million Rand through the GivenGain platform, and Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon runners have now raised more than R2.5m in total across 11 individual races. Fundraisers can easily set up and share projects, using simple but powerful tools to smash their donation goals. As one of the first events to make a comeback in 2022, race organisers aren’t expecting to set a new fundraising record, but they hope to provide charities with a much-needed supply of funds again – and set down a marker for 2023.

The return of international travel is also helping to boost fundraising at the event. The Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon, known as “the world’s most beautiful marathon”, has long been a bucket list item for adventurous international runners, and thanks to GivenGain’s borderless fundraising and donating they can now support local causes with the help of friends and family back home. This year, participants from 6 different countries are fundraising in Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon events on GivenGain, with donations coming in from 10 countries. Anyone who wants to support a Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon fundraiser can do so in their own currency using a variety of convenient international payment methods, with complete trust that their donation will go directly to the charity.

To find a fundraiser to support in the 2022 Totalsports Two Oceans Half or Ultra Marathon, or donate to a supported charity directly, visit the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon event page on GivenGain. Fundraising at the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon event page will remain open until the end of May 2022.