The inaugural ‘Sharing the Load’ stretcher carry, which was held in Gunnedah last month, aimed to raise awareness and funds for Wandering Warriors – a charity supporting Australia’s returned servicemen and women.

The initiative has already raised more than $30,000 for the beneficiary.

Now they can add a further $3000 to the total after generous support from hotel patrons and ticket sellers in Curlewis.

Publican Peter Louis sent a special thanks to the individual ticket sellers who ran raffles and supplied prizes to raise the funds.  

Such was their enthusiasm, Louis said they sold three whole ticket books on one night in the week prior to the stretcher carry challenge.

“They did a real good job,” Louis said.

Event co-ordinator Greg Sams travelled down to Canberra to meet up with the Wandering Warriors team which just finished an epic charity walk from Brisbane to the nation’s capital. 

There he was able to officially hand over the Curlewis funds to Wandering Warriors representatives, to add to the huge total Sams and his stretcher teams had already raised for the charity.

The stretcher challenge featured three teams, each carrying a stretcher weighing 50kg, non-stop for 42km from Gunnedah to Curlewis.

Volunteers travelled from around the Australia for the event and featured civilians as well as current and former serving ADF personnel. 

The event, which was a first in a civilian environment, received wide-spread support not only from the ADF but the Gunnedah community and beyond.

Plans are now underway for the 2015 stretcher challenge.