Biking with the stars

From left, Nathan Kotze, aged 4, rides his Irish leprechaun bike and Kian Boshoff also 4, in the Chase from Paw Patrol bike. Cody Adams, age 3, aka Spiderman. Four year old Mikaylin Bresgi. Kelsey Ibbett, 4, on her decorated scooter. Photos, Mia Brentnall

Around 40 under-five year olds on bikes and scooters took part in Silverdale Kindergarten’s annual Bikeathon fundraiser on March 14.

The children wore costumes and decorated their bikes for the occasion, which involved racing around a 40m track as many times as they could. The dress up theme was movies/television characters.

Organiser Will Hall took the theme to heart, donning a Shrek costume.

The event has been run since 2007, a year after the kindergarten was moved to its current site next to Silverdale School.

As well as the bikeathon, it included games like Nerf Shooting, Duck Fishing and Chuck The Toilet Roll. There were also stalls with face painting, lucky dips, food and drinks, raffles and silent auctions.

This year it raised around $4000. Will says that this is similar to last year’s total which is not bad considering things like the sausage sizzle takings were well down as people stayed away due to Covid-19.

“Local businesses were amazing,” Will says. “All the food, drinks and prizes were supplied by locals and everything we sold went straight to the kindy.”

He says around $10,000 has to be raised every year to keep the kindergarten going.