![shape logo](/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Shape-Horizontal-Logo.png"){kind=logo}
Senior executives from SHAPE have joined property industry leaders to help raise close to $350,000 for the biggest Wipeout Dementia event to date. The annual charity surfing event, which took place on Friday, 25 March at Bondi Beach, raises money to support critical research into Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
SHAPE CEO Peter Marix-Evans and NSW General Manager Phillip Wicks – a five-time Wipeout Dementia participant – took part in the event along with 62 surfers representing more than 50 companies across the property industry. The line up also included 1999 World Surfing Champion Mark ‘Occy’ Occhilupo, as well as ambassadors Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew AM, the 1978 World Surfing Champion, and Richard Grellman AM, former Chairman of ASP International (now WSL), whose wife Suellen has advanced young onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Their team, Cliff’s Carvers, was sponsored by SHAPE and SENSE PROJECTS. Named in honour of team captain Craig Rodgers’s grandfather, who passed away from Alzheimer’s disease, Cliff’s Carvers raised a combined total of more than $32,000.
The Wipeout Dementia event supports The Dementia Momentum, a UNSW Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) initiative which seeks to bring researchers and the community together to change the future of dementia incidence. Since its inception in 2015, Wipeout Dementia has raised $2 million dollars for dementia research at CHeBA.
Funds raised from this year’s Wipeout Dementia will contribute to several projects, including the expansion of international studies under The Dementia Momentum initiative, particularly the continuation of research looking at successful brain ageing for those living to 100 and beyond. The money will also help fund the expansion of CHeBA’s twins research, which has been significant in determining the proportion of risk of Alzheimer’s disease that can be attributed to genetic makeup compared to the proportion that can be attributed to lifestyle.
Currently, an estimated 250 Australians are diagnosed with dementia each day. Without a medical breakthrough, this figure is expected to rise to 650 Australians per day by 2056.
Congratulations to all the surfers that took part in this year’s event!