Bolathon Charity Fun Run & Masquerade Walk 2018

This post is overdue and I was supposed to do this earlier this week. Anyway, it is better late than never. If any of you remember, I posted a fundraising post, Raising Fund For Hope Worldwide Malaysia about a couple of weeks ago. I received the payout for that post a week later but I decided to not withdraw the reward until this week (more about this below).

As stated in my above post, Hope Worldwide Malaysia had organized a charity fun run and masquerade walk on the 24 June 2018, which was last Sunday. It was the first time my family attended this event. This event is held every four years in conjunction with FIFA World Cup. We did not attend the past events because my children were still too young. However, this year, my kids were older and they were ready to tackle the 3KM fun run.

We woke up at 5am that Sunday morning. We prayed and hoped the weather would be favorable and not raining. I even packed four raincoats in my backpack in case it rains. But thank God it was a sunny day. Initially, we wanted to wear masks but decided not to at the last minute. I did suggest to my hubby some ideas for our costumes but somehow that did not happen. Anyway, we probably can do better next time.

When we arrived at the venue, it was already past 7am, and the 10KM runners were about to get flagged off. We took some photos while waiting for the 3KM fun run.

Family selfie

The event was officiated by YB Dr. Ong Kian Ming, who is the Member of Parliament for Serdang. The event venue was at Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang.

Even though it was supposed to be a "3km fun run", we did not run but walking instead LOL! The kids did run a bit but we mostly walked. There were hundreds (maybe more than 1000) of participants. A quarter of them were kids. Some of them wore costumes and I really loved how creative some of them were! And yes, the best-dressed participants were rewarded. I did not take pictures of these participants but you can see them on Hope Worldwide official FB page here

That's my girl jogged at the beginning of the run but soon she started to complain of leg cramps. And so we walked all the way LOL.

And my boy could not continue and had to piggyback halfway through. Someone had mentioned that we should bring a stroller but we didn't have any. Anyway, it was a good work out for @voltranrex LOL.

After walking for one hour we finally reached the finishing line! Yay we did it! We took our time to have some drinks before collecting our medals. The medals were designed and sponsored by Adidas Malaysia! Yes, our first family "marathon medals" LOL! And wasted no time and took family selfies.

Apart from the medals, we had some goodies like discount vouchers from the sponsors (KFC, McDonald's, Starbucks etc). Yup, that was really cool. The event wrapped up around noon and we headed to the nearest KFC for our lunch. We used our KFC discount vouchers, of course LOL.

In my fundraising post, Raising Fund For Hope Worldwide Malaysia, I pledged to donate the post liquid reward to Hope Worldwide Malaysia. I did not withdraw the fund immediately because I was hoping SBD and Steem rates would improve but alas it kept plummeting :(. And I decided not to withdraw the fund and keep it (because of the high exchange fees) but in return I used my own money to donate. The total amount of SBD and Steem after the conversion was around RM40+ and I topped it up a bit. See the bank transaction screenshot below. Yup, I was disappointed with the low SBD/Steem rates but I did my best. I knew the money will be used for the good cause and I will do this again in the future.

It was a memorable event for our family because we had the opportunity to educate our kids about being charitable and helping those in need especially those who are less fortunate. We will definitely get the kids to involve in Hope Worldwide programs if the opportunities arise in the future.