A local gym has put their fitness to the test to raise an impressive $15,298 – all for a good cause.
When local Soumaya Trad, owner of All Grit CrossFit in Parramatta, heard about a fundraiser for UN Women Australia, she knew she had to get involved.
“Before buying the gym I was a lawyer and I worked a lot in the family law area. Last year I sat the bar exam, so I’ve stepped back into law but in a different capacity – I’ve become a Barrister now,” she told Parra News.
“So, I’m super exposed to the realities of violence perpetrated against women and children, and this fundraiser was particularly aimed at women and girls and keeping them safe.
“I’ve viewed it in this lens; as a legal professional and also having grown up in an environment where my mum was a victim and a survivor of family violence.”
Trad then reached out to the 60 members of her Hunter Street gym to try to get them involved in the fundraiser.
“When I saw the [fundraiser] come through, I thought we can rally some pretty good support from the community,” she added.
“So, I put it out to the members, I was like ‘would this be an initiative that you guys are interested in?’ and I was actually surprised by how many of the members said ‘this is actually great, thank you for speaking about this and raising awareness’.”
Not the kind of people to pass up a challenge, the gym members completed either 30, 60 or 100 kilometres of some kind of exercise over the span of two weeks to raise the vital funds.
By the time the fundraiser had come to an end, the All Grit CrossFit team had not only managed to raise more than organisations double their size, but raise more than any other organisation who participated in Australia.
The accomplishment came as a huge shock to Trad.
“When we were watching the tallies over the two weeks, we’re just looking at these number and I’m like ‘how are we raising this much?’,” she said.
“It was quite overwhelming to see that we’ve managed to rally such an effort, with each member reaching out to their own community and getting that support.
“We’re a CrossFit gym so by virtue a lot of us are really competitive, so heaps of us viewed this as a personal competition.”
Check out http://www.allgritcrossfit.com.au.
Ellie Busby is a news reporter for Western Sydney Publishing Group. A graduate of the University of Hertfordshire and Western Sydney University, she is a journalism Major. Ellie has worked with Universal Media, The Cova Project and for a range of other organisations. In 2024, Ellie was named Young Writer of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.