By Parker McKenzie
A Sassafras business has sponsored a team for the 2022 Oxfam Melbourne Trailwalk, where the four team members will attempt a 100 kilometre trail across two days for charity.
The Tea Leaves Anytime! team is sponsored by Tea Leaves of Sassafras, a retail and wholesale tea and teapot company, as they join 1200 other trail walkers on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 March.
Tea Leaves of Sassafras owner Dionni Ring said the team will need a good cup of tea after the walk.
“Tea Leaves has been part of the Sassafras community for 28 years and we’ve always supported groups like the CFA and community events, so when our manager Kath asked if we’d consider sponsoring her team, we said yes,” Ms Ring said.
“I think we get the easy part of the deal, the team has to walk 100km from Endeavour Hills to Heidelberg via Olinda and Lilydale.”
Tea Leaves Anytime! is made up of Dandenong Ranges locals Kathryn Eames, Katerina Volny and team leader Judy Friguglietti. Sue Filmer rounds out the team in her first appearance at an Oxfam Melbourne Trailwalker event.
Ms Friguglietti said she first became involved through a connection at her children’s kindergarten 12 years ago.
“We were living at Kalorama and my children went to kindergarten at Mount Dandenong Kindergarten. One of the mothers there said I’m turning 40 next year, let’s do something fun,” she said.
“This looks like fun; it’s a 100km thing. Let’s get a team together and we all thought it looked fabulous. Without knowing much about it, we just thought it would be a good idea and put ourselves out there.”
Since 1999, 93,000 Australians have contributed to raising more than $96 million to aid people in developing countries through Oxfam Trailwalker. Teams of four must complete the 100km walk in 48 hours and raise a minimum of $1600 per team.
Oxfam is a confederation of 21 independent charitable organisations around the world. The Trailwalker event has seen 250,000 people take part worldwide and has helped raise more than $190 million for their goal of alleviating global poverty.
Ms Friguglietti said this year’s Trailwalker will be her ninth in total, and the event has helped her learn to think about others instead of herself because of the focus on teamwork throughout the event.
“Women overseas can walk 10 to 15km to a well, and that’s just to get a drink of water and some water for them to wash their children in,” she said.
“It really brings it all into perspective, it’s even helping pay for a pump that might be able to irrigate crops for an entire village.”
Ms Friguglietti said while they usually train for three months to prepare, in 2022 the team has trained for a month with invaluable support from friends and family.
“All the support creates a ripple effect for the event, where you have such an amazing groundswell of support,” she said.
Oxfam’s Trailwalker event is one of the first charity endurance events, with the aim of raising money to tackle poverty around the world. The event began in 1981 as a military training exercise for the elite Queen’s Gurkha Signals Regiment in Hong Kong.
To track the progress of Tea Leaves Anytime, visit www.trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/t/tealeavesanytime
