A 30-Day Challenge taken on by our industry’s best

Last Monday, as day 30 rounded off to its end, close to 700 property and construction professionals crossed the finishing line of their fitness journeys, for what was an amazing Property Industry 30-Day Fitness Challenge.

The top team fundraising crown firmly remains in the hands of ADCO Constructions for the second year running! From day one, the drive of encouraging a healthy culture and making a collective impact was clear amongst the team.

Each member played their part in the strength of the total team’s performance. With 100 participants and around 360 donations across the month, the ADCO team have earned the 1st place spot and the bragging rights of a company that has truly played an active role in helping us stop youth homelessness.

A truly honourable mention needs to go to team Diadem, who are currently 5th place in team fundraising after day 30! Thank you to the Diadem team for keeping their campaign going strong after day 30 and showing true class.

To say the final minutes of individual fundraising was a nailbiter would be an understatement. The Foundation was on the edge of its seat keeping a close eye on the back and forth in leaderboards with the deciding 1st place donation coming through bang on midnight (we have never hit refresh on a browser so much in our lives)!

We congratulate Vanessa Borg on taking 1st place in individual fundraising with a photo finish! Fun fact, Vanessa was one of the first people to socially mention her involvement in the 30-Day Fitness Challenge when we ran it for the first time last year. Now Vanessa can add 1st place fundraiser to her list of firsts.

Vanessa’s strategy was all about proactivity. Swimming, riding her bike, the family swear jar, the planning of how she would attack the challenge and more. Vanessa planned her challenge down to a science and took her friends, family and colleagues with her through her fitness journey. Always with a frame of mind about making a difference, she rallied 67 donations across the 30 days to put herself in the top spot!

A very special mention needs to go to Anthony Flynn who surged past his $1,000 fundraising goal to take second place by a convincing amount at over $14,500! We speak about the challenge as an opportunity to work on betterment, to take action for the mind, and for a cause that helps young people who can’t help themselves, and Anthony is a fantastic example of someone who sought out to smash his goal for homeless youth and then got active to do better.

Andrew Fuller continues the trend of ADCO title holding by outriding the competition to take 1st place in cycling for a second year running.

The ADCO & GPT teams carry their 1st and 2nd place supremacy in fundraising across to their cycling while Make Architects cycling tour of their offices across Sydney puts them firmly in 3rd place.

The Design & Build team were incredibly proactive from day one, branching into various ways of getting active. Alex Scott decided his choice of activity would be to casually outrun the competition, being 38km in front of the next closest runner.

Core Project Consulting has been a literal active supporter of the Foundation for some time. From Managing Director Ian Prentice being a pandemic away from running the Sahara desert for the Foundation, to their team activity both last year and this year. It’s no surprise a company as grounded in helping young people as Core Project has translated this with a fantastic team run result.

Jim Coleman must have had some long stride form in his last bits of walking as he edges out 1st place by Lee Crisp by 0.30km! Special mention to Tass for underselling how active he is only to end up in the top 5 walkers for the challenge, outpacing Karis by 3km and almost taking 3rd place by 0.35km (who thought walking could be so competitive).

I have had to restrain myself from the endless pun possibilities of PAYCE taking the top spot in team walking. Though they may have confused the leaderboards sitting in individuals, the team management of logging their collective activity shows they moved as one, maintaining a strong pace (had to) to cover over 6,000km!

Harry Macciolli from Vaughan Constructions comes off as the type to have a stand-up desk at work. Just looking through his fitness log for the month made me tired. With a mix of walks, rides and workouts, I hope Harry finds the time to sit down and rest.

The Property Industry Foundation logged over 1,000km in walking, running and swimming is part victory lap, part public shaming that I did only 7 of my 30km goal. Special shout outs to regular swimmers Kate & Christine, the office competitive runner Claudia (who somehow isn’t satisfied hitting 242 of her 500km goal!) and Maureen for owning a car but never using it.

Together we raised over $230,000 to go towards our PIF House Program! While we were short of the fundraising target (donations still open by the way), we won in so many ways. The challenge was about positive impact for yourself, your teams and for homeless youth in need. It was a call to challenge yourself and better the mind, body and lives of at-risk young people. Hearing the many stories of self-improvement, seeing some amazing results and in the end, raising enough to almost cover the cost of an entire PIF House project is a big victory in the eyes of the Foundation. You got fit for 30 days but the impact you made will help generations of young people.

So thank you to all our 30-Day Fitness Challenge participants, to all the supporters that donated and to our events sponsors for taking 30 days to change young lives. And as Kate Mills always says “see you next year”.