Community
27 May, 2026
Walking the distance
COBDEN Technical School’s Zoe Buck and her family are putting foot to pavement this May for multiple sclerosis (MS), with a goal of walking 50 kilometres each to raise funds for research into the devastating disease.
Zoe said she had been scrolling her socials and getting promotions for the ‘May 50k’ for a while before she decided to look further into it and take on the challenge, getting her mother and stepfather involved in the cause.
The ‘May 50k’ challenge encourages people to walk or run 50 kilometres in the month of May to raise funds for vital research into multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease which affects the central nervous system and damages the fatty material called myelin around the nerves.
“Our family is not very active, we don’t really do much, so I thought this would be a good thing to get us to not only do it for the cause but to get our family up and moving a bit more too, which would be really good,” Zoe said.
“It kept popping up on my socials and it was getting annoying, but when I realised what it was for and that we knew people in those circumstances, I realised it was a lot more relevant than you might otherwise think it is.
“I didn’t know about multiple sclerosis at first, I was pretty blind because we don’t really learn about any of these things at school, so you have no idea.
“Then I found out one of our good friends (Jo Beard) – I knew she had some sort of disease, but I didn’t know what it was, but then after talking to Garry (Ross, stepfather) a little bit, I found out that’s what she has, and she’s one of Garry’s good friends and always has been.
“Then we found out there’s a lot of other people we know that do have MS, just here in Cobden – in this area there’s 12 or 14 or something like that, and there’s meant to be one in 1000 people have it.”
While Zoe first kept the fundraiser within her family, it quickly reached her school and she was inspired to organise an additional walk of the school oval with her fellow students to raise awareness for MS.
“I’ve now gone to school and a couple of the teachers have heard about what we’re doing and one of them came to me and asked if I would be willing to organise something with the school about it,” she said.
“Now I’m organising to do a walk with school on Friday, May 29 in the morning for this cause and then I’ve organised an information session later in the day for the older kids to learn about MS, what it is and how it affects people in their lives.
“It started as just family but then it got out to Rotary and stuff like that as well.
“We’re going to do two laps of the school oval which will be about 800-900 metres per person, so when you add that all up that’s well and truly over 50 kilometres for the whole school just in one go so that’s a good amount.”
Zoe said the family’s goal was to raise $250 each or $500 as a group, which at the time of publication they had surpassed by reaching $936.
Zoe had walked 28 kilometres so far, with hopes of stretching out the final few kilometres towards the end of the month.
“If I walk home from school or walk to school, I put that on there, because that’s something that people that suffer from multiple sclerosis can’t do,” she said.
“Simple walks like that, that’s maybe a kilometre, a kilometre and a half, to and from school, and simple things like that, they can’t do very often, they would struggle a lot.
“So even little walks like that, I’ll put it on there.”
Zoe said it was great to have the support of her family backing the cause with her, especially knowing people with MS personally in her life.
“I pretty much just said to my family, ‘This is what we’re doing,” she said.
“I really wanted to do it, for us, and after speaking about it and saying I wanted to do it for us as a family, Garry said it would be good because this is something people we know have.
“Then it was like, now I’ve got even more of a reason to do it.
“They were pretty on board – as soon as they found out that I was pretty keen to do it, they were quite happy to join with me and do it with me.”
Zoe’s mum, Julie Burrow, said the challenge has changed the way the family goes about their daily lives.
“As a team we’ve logged 109.62 kilometres so far – it’s really exciting,” Ms Burrow said.
“It’s actually really funny because we’re only 900 metres from the supermarket and now we’re thinking, oh, we’ll just walk down.
“If we want to go to the supermarket on the weekend, Garry will just walk down there to get his juice.
“It’s really changed the way we think about travelling a shorter distance within town.
“As far as donations go, I’m blown away with the support that people have given us – if they’ve got $5 they give $5, and that really helps.”
Zoe said as a part of the informative talk at school, family friend Jo Beard – who has multiple sclerosis – would come talk to Cobden Technical School students and provide information about the autoimmune disease.
“Jo will come and talk to us at school – I think at this stage it will be 10-12 students so the older kids – just about her journey and what it’s been like for her to deal with it and a bit about what it is,” she said.
“She’ll talk about how it affects her daily life, cures and whether it’ll get better or worse or stay the same and all that basic information.
“That was my idea with the school thing, if I can do the talk this year and get that knowledge out, hopefully then next year’s Year 12s will be able to go and do the same thing again, then they’ll get inspiration then the following year, and it will keep going on.
“Then it will come back to the schools and it will become a bigger thing.”
Zoe’s stepfather, Garry Ross, said he and Zoe’s mum were both extremely proud of Zoe for having the initiative to take on the walk for MS.
“As Zoe’s mum and Zoe’s stepdad we’re so proud of her for having the initiative to do that and make a difference – that’s pretty special,” he said.
To donate to the cause, visit https://www.themay50k.org/fundraisers/thewalkers or click the button below.
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