Book cash looks for cure

YARRA Glen businessman Derek Thurgood would be the first to admit that door-to-door salesmen have had some pretty bad press over the years.
But one group, at least, is making up for it now.
Mr Thurgood is one of the Book People, 40 door-to-door booksellers who last week handed over a cheque for $65,316 to the Royal Children’s Hospital Cystic Fibrosis Research Unit.
The donation boosted their contribution to the hospital over the past three-and-a-half-years to a milestone $250,000.
The members of the group are independent Victorian and Tasmanian franchisees of Lifetime Distributors, a national book and novelty sales company which sells direct to the public through schools, kindergartens, neighbourhood houses, shops and commercial offices.
Mr Thurgood said the group, in cooperation with the Lifetime, had formed their own hospital auxiliary called Lifetime for CF Kids.
“Ten cents is donated from every book we sell to support research into cystic fibrosis at the Royal Children’s Hospital,” he said. There is no cure for the disease.
“It is a disease which is inherited by children and affects the lungs and the bowel; it is progressive, life limiting and, at present, incurable,” he said.
Professor Phil Robinson, director of the hospital’s cystic fibrosis research unit, said that the group’s support was a valuable contribution to the fight to find a cure for cystic fibrosis.
“The only way cystic fibrosis is ever going to be cured is through research and your continued support gives hope to sufferers throughout Australia,” Dr Robinson told members of the group at the cheque handover ceremony.