Bunbury and Districts Little Athletics Club receives share of banana bolstered funding campaign

Young Bunbury athletes are breaking in all-new equipment and going bananas thanks to an “a-peeling” funding campaign from Coles.

The Bunbury and Districts Little Athletics Club received $2100 from the Coles Little Athletics Community Fund, which seeks to help grassroots clubs buy new sporting and safety equipment.

BDLAC president Paul Lever said the grant would help the centre provide a quality program for its athletes and volunteers.

“With this grant, we’ll be able to purchase a new speaker system to replace our old one that is damaged beyond repair,” he said.

“The new speaker will help our centre to communicate critical information, honour our record breakers and acknowledge our volunteers and officials each morning at our meets, as well as to help start 200m and 400m races.

“COVID and the fact we had to compete on a temporary grass track last season had an impact on our membership, but this season we are hopeful of getting back to pre-COVID numbers of around 350 to 400 athletes with our return to the Bunbury Athletics Arena.”

More than 70 clubs across Australia received a share in $250,000 raised by the Coles Banana A-peel, in which 10 cents of every kilogram of cavendish bananas sold were donated to the cause.

Coles State general manager Pat Zanetti said the company was delighted to support Little Athletics centres in WA.

“Coles has been a proud supporter of Little Athletics for over five years and we’re delighted to provide over $16,000 in sports equipment grants to WA’s Little Athletics centres to help them gear up for this season,” he said.

“We know very well the impact the pandemic has had on local clubs and communities over the past two years and we hope these grants will help them to recover and look forward to a new Little Athletics season ahead.”

Since being introduced in 2018, the initiative has raised more than $2.2 million.