SuperKids SuperHeroes Round founders Simon and Kim Kane want to take Auskick activation national
And now, the Bridgetown pair are hoping this weekend's WA Auskick SuperKids SuperHeroes Round, which raises money in memory of Declan, can go national to raise even more money in the fight against childhood cancer.
Kids across more than 50 Auskick clubs across the state donned the cape and cowl on the field this weekend for the annual commemorative round, which brings together two of Declan's favourite things: football and superheroes.
This year's round will also feature a half-time activation at Sunday's AFL clash between West Coast Eagles and St Kilda at Optus Stadium.
Declan was just eight years old when he lost his fight to neuroblastoma, a type of cancer mostly diagnosed in young children, in 2017 after four years battling the disease.
The Kane Family began to fundraise for The Kids' Cancer Project in 2016, initially with a 10-day, 600km odyssey from their hometown of Bridgetown to Perth on motorised scooters.
Having driven the creation of SuperKids SuperHeroes Round to celebrate Declan's legacy, the Kanes have now raised more than $440,000 for The Kids' Cancer Project and are set to pass the half-a-million mark this year.
Simon Kane, who often dresses up as Batman, Declan's favourite superhero, said the round just kept getting bigger and bigger.
'Every time we stop and reflect, we just get overwhelmed with joy, helping making a big difference on other people's lives,' he said.
'Obviously going through that hard stage ourselves, trying to make fun out of it and then seeing the kids have so much fun and kids helping kids as well at the same time, which they don't realise they're doing — that brings a lot of joy to our hearts.'
While the round remains a strictly-WA affair for now, Kim Kane said the goal was to raise even more awareness around the battle against childhood cancer and take the message national.
'Kids definitely do gravitate towards the superheroes. Whenever we arrive at any of the ovals, it kind of brings an element of crazy and the kids just go bananas,' she said.
'We're hoping that this will spread right throughout WA and even over to the eastern states. That's our main goal...we would really like to extend that nationwide.
'All the funds that are raised help all kids in Australia who are fighting cancer,so it's not just kids in WA that benefit, it's kids throughout the whole of Australia.'
Kids' Cancer Project chief executive Owen Finegan has been involved with the foundation since 2015 and has watched the Kane family's story unfold every step of the way.
'Families who have gone through the childhood cancer journey, for all of them, it's a lifetime challenge,' he said.
'They're either going through sort of secondary chronic illness and the chance of it reoccurring, or like the Kane family, you have families that forever doing something like this in memory and as a legacy for the child they lost.
'Our strongest advocates are the people that have been through this experience and it's amazing to see 10 years later the Kane family are still fundraising in memory of Declan, who passed away and will be forever eight.'
Finegan, who played 56 games for the Wallabies before moving into the non-profit sector, said the personal stories of the Kane family helped add more emotion to the statistics.
'Every day, three families are hearing the words 'your child has cancer'; every week, three of those children pass away; there's 950 kids every year diagnosed with cancer in Australia,' he said.
'The round and the activations, it's raising awareness, which make people aware of those sort of statistics, but also then the opportunity for them to donate and we celebrate that every dollar makes a difference.
'It has been a way for them to honour and preserve Declan's legacy, while continuing to help others and making sure that the next kid that's diagnosed with neuroblastoma or cancer hopefully finds kinder and better treatments and a better survival rate and better quality of life, and they're able to not just survive their treatment, but thrive.'
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