Comrades Marathon raises nearly 6.5 million rand for charities

“We are impressed with the fundraising efforts of our runners and supporters in this year’s Comrades Marathon and are proud to hand over the funds to our deserving charities,” said CMA Charities & CSI Convenor, Pat Freeman, who thanked everyone who contributed to this year’s Comrades Amabeadibeadi charity drive.

“The commitment and passion of our Amabeadibeadi charities inspire us all to give back and make a difference. Their grassroots initiatives and daily hard work is what makes South Africa great.”

The total sum of ZAR 6,477,983 (~ 327,000 EUR or 360,000 USD), exceeding 2023 donations by 1.5million, was achieved through a combination of charitable donations with runners’ entries, merchandise sales at the Comrades Expo, the Race4Charity platform, the Toyota Win-A-Car competition and funds raised by the greater Comrades community.

The funds were distributed to the six official Amabeadibeadi charities, namely the CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation SA, Sanparks Honorary Rangers, Durban & Pietermaritzburg Community Chests, Hillcrest Aids Centre Trust (HACT), Rise Against Hunger (RAH) and Childline KwaZulu-Natal.

Runners who chose to Race4Charity raised R5.2-million with Mahesh Ratanjee, being the top fundraiser for 2024, raising nearly ZAR 200,000 for his charity of choice, Community Chest.

Jana Calmeyer who ran for the Childhood Cancer Foundation raised ZAR 142,000 while Dean Wight raised the third highest amount of ZAR 110,000 for the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust.

CMA Chairperson, Mqondisi Ngcobo said, “Our Comrades community is so generous and kind; and it is this bighearted spirit that has resulted in the success of our charity drive. We are also extremely grateful to our charities for their hard work. In the spirit of the Comrades Marathon, we can all do our bit to give back in one way or another.”

Ngcobo adds, “We convey our heartfelt thank you to our runners, supporters and partners who came on board to build on our fundraising efforts, most notably Toyota South Africa who generously sponsored a Toyota Corolla Cross for our annual car giveaway on race day, raising nearly ZAR 737,000 for charity. As we build up to next year’s Down Run, we invite more athletes to give back to the greater good.”