General News
10 January, 2025
Mad Max fundraiser to reach Maryborough
Dale Jolly is taking fundraising To the Max with his rally team by the same name at a Mad Max car and bike meet this Sunday.
Carz and Coffee, a local social club of car enthusiasts, are handing over their meet-up at the Maryborough Railway Station this weekend to Mad Max cars and motorbikes, including ones you might recognise from the movies.
They hope to help Mr Jolly raise as much money as possible for Country Hope which is a charity that provides family centred support programs to country children diagnosed with cancer or other life threatening illnesses.
“Being a stay at home dad I wanted to do something good. I felt like I wasn’t contributing, I wanted to do something,” Mr Jolly said.
This comes ahead of the Riverina Outback Rally which Mr Jolly and his team will be doing in March.
The rally is a five day charity fundraising event which departs from Barmera in South Australia and ends in Hillston, New South Wales. Teams need to fundraise at least $3000 for Country Hope to enter but ideally fundraise more.
What Mr Jolly might not tell you though is this project is helping him through some difficult recovery after suffering a head injury in a motorcycle accident during COVID.
“I don’t remember having the accident or anything. I just remember waking up in hospital. It was around COVID so it was crazy and yeah, I just slept it off for about eight months or so. I couldn’t get the help at that stage, everything was just crazy. That could be why [my recovery] has taken quite a while,” he said.
“It’s hard to find a new normal.”
Mr Jolly used to not talk about it, he still says many people have it a lot worse than him and he doesn’t want to be pitied, but finding his new normal led him to coffees with his mate Casey Bandy whose idea it was to do the Riverina Outback Rally with him.
“He works as a social worker so he’s sort of helped me through a bit with [my recovery] as well. We knew each other before but recently he’s been taking me out to coffee on a Thursday and that’s where this started,” he said.
The idea to enter came at a time when Mr Jolly had sold off his bikes because he wasn’t able to ride them anymore. He was looking for a new direction which this fundraising has provided while also making a difference.
“Mental health hasn’t been great. But this has just kept me pushing forward. Family’s helped a lot but this has been good too to keep my mind off of stuff,” he said.
It’s a continuation of Mr Jolly’s previous charity work, specifically toy drives, but he’s never been the centre of attention.
“I’ve never done anything like this before and yeah, I’ve sort of thrown myself in the deep end with it,” he said.
But he’s got a community all over the region that supports him. From friends making donations to the Ballarat Bike Night doing a ride from Ballarat to Maryborough in support of Mr Jolly.
“I’m not the greatest around a heap of people but a lot of mates are going to be there so I should be pretty good,” he said.
Group manager of Carz and Coffee, Kelly Aitken, believes there will be a hundred cars plus bikes on Sunday.
If you’d like to sponsor Mr Jolly and the To the Max team, or make a donation, you can find more information on the Carz & Coffee Maryborough Facebook page.