The Musselburgh School principal completed a half-marathon in Wellington last weekend and will attempt the half-marathon section of the Dunedin Marathon in September in an effort to raise money to pay for adventure programmes at his school’s year 5 and 6 camp at Berwick this year.
Mr Taylor said he would have been pleased just to raise $1000 for the camp, but after receiving attention from the Otago Daily Times and other media around the country, his total now stands at $12,500.
‘‘It’s an amazing amount.
‘‘It means we’ll be able to subsidise the camp for parents more than we’d even thought.’’
Because of high fuel and food costs, he said this year’s camp would cost between $18,000 and $20,000, and much of those costs had to be paid by parents.
‘‘Parents not having to pay $12,500 of that is a significant amount. It’s unbelievable — I can’t believe it.’’
Mr Taylor said he was surprised to see donations come from all over New Zealand and as far away as Australia.
While he was not expecting any more money to be donated over the next few months, he said, ‘‘I wouldn’t say no if some more turned up’’.
He said school camps were ‘‘so important’’ for children because they got experiences that they could not get in a classroom.
‘‘Even outside in our school grounds, you can’t do abseiling and you can’t do tree climbing and you can’t do archery and you can’t go kayaking.
‘‘You don’t get opportunities to do these in a normal school environment.
‘‘They learn things like how to be resilient, how to take good risks with the safety all around them, teamwork and how to encourage their friends to do things that they wouldn’t normally be doing — all kinds of stuff.
‘‘It’s not so much about the activity of canoeing itself. It’s the personal things you can learn from doing the activities.
‘‘That’s the key.’’
Despite inclement weather during the Wellington half-marathon, Mr Taylor was pleased with his run.
‘‘I did 2 hours and 11 minutes, which I was all right with.
‘‘It was pretty windy and stuff, but I was happy with that.
‘‘And now I’ve got to build up again to the Dunedin one in September.’’
