Sport
3 August, 2023
Talbot brings community together to support Maddisyn Carroll, battling Friedreich’s Ataxia
Fighting for the cause is always at the forefront of the minds of all at the Talbot B.A Road Services Hawks. So when a committee member raised the plight of 13-year-old Maddisyn Carroll — daughter of past Talbot player Shaun Carroll — and her...
Fighting for the cause is always at the forefront of the minds of all at the Talbot B.A Road Services Hawks.
So when a committee member raised the plight of 13-year-old Maddisyn Carroll — daughter of past Talbot player Shaun Carroll — and her battle with Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA) to president Dallas Byars, he was quick to jump on board and find out any way to help.
Byars hatched an idea that the club’s popular Cow Pad Lotto was key to securing much-needed fundraiser money to the Carroll family.
“The Cow Pad Lotto has been a fundraiser for the last couple of years that we’ve run purely as a club fundraiser, but earlier in the year, one of our committee members came to me, as a related in-law to Shaun Carroll and the family,” he said.
“She told me the situation, and I had brought Shaun along to the club when I coached them to come and play, and he played 50 games with the club.
“I knew Maddisyn had an illness. She’s in a wheelchair now, but it looks like she will need to move into an electric wheelchair, which will require a huge amount of expenses in terms of further adjustments around the house and needing to buy a new car to bring the wheelchair in.
“We centred on the idea of the Cow Pad Lotto day as a vehicle to raise money for Maddisyn and the family to support her independence and her mobility moving forward.”
FA is known as the most common form of hereditary ataxia, which affects one in 30,000 people around Australia and New Zealand. It’s an inherited genetic condition which gradually damages the nervous system, with symptoms including muscle weakness, loss of co-ordination and balance, heart disease and speech problems.
Symptoms can appear as early as 18 months, or as late as 40 or 50 years old, but a majority of people see symptoms between the ages of five and 15, with variability from person to person.
One in 90 people are carriers of the FXN gene, and do not know that they have the gene.
Byars said the Carroll family weren’t ones to ask for help, but when he pitched his idea, they were thrilled with the thought.
“They are not the type of people to come out and put their hand up and ask for help, they are a quiet, reserved family. But we asked if there was something we could do as a club to help them, and they said ‘absolutely’,” he said.
Byars detailed what Maddisyn was going through with her battle with FA.
“She was diagnosed at nine. It progressed reasonably quickly from walking, walking with an aide, to a wheelchair and now an electric wheelchair,” he said.
“It’s happened quicker than they were expecting. The family are working through the NDIS at the moment around getting a new wheelchair.
“The family had to sell their house and move elsewhere to accommodate wheelchair accessibility, so it doesn’t come cheap, and now they will need to get a new family car so Maddisyn can drive her wheelchair straight in without getting in and out of the vehicle. Buying one that needs to be converted is an expensive exercise.
“This is about supporting her independence and mobility, to be able to get around and do all the things that a teenager should be doing, like family outings, getting to and from school easily, at the moment, they find that challenging, so whatever we can do to make it easier is really important to make sure her quality of life is as good as it can possibly be.”
As a result, Talbot will not only have the support of their community, but also from surrounding clubs around the Ballarat and Central Highlands area, who’ll also be supporting Maddisyn’s fight on the day, and going forward.
“Maddisyn’s brother, Jack Bambury, plays for Sebastopol, and they’ll be bringing a bus load out from there, and they’ll be running their own fundraiser for the family in a couple of weeks’ time, which is great as well,” Byars said.
“Shaun’s mother is a member of the Mullane family. They’re synonymous around Ballan and there are lots of lifelong supporters, with Shaun playing for a few years out there as well. A few Ballan people will come as well, so it’s great to see two or three footy clubs banding together to support the Carrolls and get around a worthy sort of cause.”
While the Hawks’ game against Newstead tomorrow is set to be a bumper occasion, the club is hoping Sunday's event will be even bigger, with activities for families, the Western Bulldogs providing some activities, silent auctions, jumping castles, face painting and live music.
“The Western Bulldogs are bringing out their stuff, which was organised through the league,” Byars said.
“There is plenty of space on the oval for kids to run around and do what they want to do.
“We’ll cordon off a paddock for the cow, who’ll be the main show.
“We’ll have some silent auctions that we’ll be running through the days, we’ll have online auctions through our event page and we’ll have live auctions as well. We have signed AFL jumpers and some cool donated prizes as well.
“There should be plenty happening throughout the afternoon.”
While the Hawks are currently battling to make the top eight on the football field, as well as trying to avoid the wooden spoon on the netball court, Byars says the opportunity to help the Carroll family is first and foremost paramount.
“I don’t want to put a number on it, but the more money we can raise, the better we can do for Shaun and Kathryn Carroll, and for Maddisyn,” he said.
“We’re hoping to get a couple of hundred people out there. Ticket sales have been really good, and it looks like it will be really well supported.
“We’d love to have as many people support it as we can, even if someone doesn’t buy a ticket, people are welcome to come along, be part of an auction and buy a snag, they’ll all help.
“We’ll aim as high as we can possibly go.”