Mad-cap bash delivers fun and cash

BIG RIG: Peter Drummond, of The Fish Pot Cafe, Auckland, driving the ladder truck from Los Angeles.

The Variety Trillian Bash children's charity rolled 180 costumed collaborators and 30 mad-cap conveyances - including a stretched limo police car, a 17m-long fire truck, and a bubble-blowing ambulance - through a handful of Masterton schools yesterday.

Masterton Primary School deputy principal Steve Elliott said the 25th anniversary visit had been kept secret from pupils to help sweeten the arrival of the charity motorcade at the school.

He said the Variety Bash team, which was last at MPS several years ago, had led the entire school roll of about 270 pupils through a comic performance and handed out goodie bags containing balloons, lolly-pops, notebooks, stickers and caps to each child. A printer and other gear was given to the school as well.

Mr Elliott said he remembered one of three earlier Variety Bash visits to the school, during which legendary Kiwi runner John Walker had raced across the width of the playing fields "with about 200 kids chasing after him".

Variety Bash director Murray O'Donnell said the charity had launched its travels this year in New Plymouth before passing through Ohakea, Ohakune and Wellington and arriving in Wairarapa on Monday morning to meet Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott and, afterwards, navigating the snaking coastal road to Ngawi.

He said the motorcade split in to three groups in Masterton yesterday morning , entertaining pupils at Masterton Primary, Lakeview, Fernridge, Opaki, Douglas Park, and St Patrick's schools.

The travelling troupe was to stay in Ashhurst last night, he said, before travelling on to Napier.

The annual event had over the years evolved into "a quirky car rally which travels hundreds of kilometres during one week in March each year fundraising for Kiwi kids, distributing grants, entertaining children and telling the Variety story", according to the group's website.

"It's a mad-cap adventure full of eccentric vehicles, larger-than-life characters and heart-felt philanthropy."

Mr O'Donnell said community involvement was essential to the success of the charity, which makes grants to children and child-based organisations while travelling and visiting schools and other like groups throughout New Zealand.

A call for grant applications is made to each region on the Bash route prior to the arrival of the Variety Bash in any given area and approved grants were presented to the recipients by Variety Bash players while on the road. The grants can cover educational resources, mobility equipment, books, sports equipment and medical resources such as insulin pumps.

-For more information go online to variety.org.nz.