Shellharbour students lead the MS fight

A NATIONAL marathon of reading is nearing its end, and Shellharbour students are amongst the leaders in the 2007 MS Readathon.

Thousands of Aussie kids have crossed the finish line early, after collectively reading close to one-million books, and already raising $3.3 million to help Australians living with Multiple Sclerosis.

Of this, New South Wales children have already collected over $1 million to help locals living with MS.

MS Australia wants to raise $5 million this year, but needs the help of Shellharbour's bookworms.

They are over halfway there, so all of Shellharbour's MS Readathon participants are being urged to finish now, to help MS Australia raise much-needed funds for support services and MS research.

Local bookworms racing to finish: There are 12,000 children in New South Wales still to return their MS Readathon sponsorship money, including students from Shellharbour.

More than 20,400 students in New South Wales are estimated to have read 400,000 books, magazines, newspapers and Internet articles in June for the MS Readathon, and now they should all be racing to collect their sponsorship money.

Every dollar raised helps, for example just $10 can provide an information pack for a newly diagnosed person, while $25 can provide a taxi subsidy to someone with MS to see a specialist, and $60 can pay for a consultation with a specialist nurse.

MS Australia is encouraging all Aussie kids to quickly chase up all of their sponsorship money and send it in, so they too can be recognised for their reading efforts and receive well earned Reading Rewards as well as the satisfaction of helping others.

All funds raised from this massive reading effort will help provide essential support services for Australians living with Multiple Sclerosis.