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12 | THE REVIEW JAN–APR 2024 There’s no stopping Andrew AndrewMcCrory is on a mission to help kids living with Cerebral Palsy – one step at a time. By Melanie Louden Andrew McCrory has a back injury and a girl named Liv Fountain to thank for changing the course of his life – and the lives of more than 14 other children. Andrew was waiting for back surgery in 2017 when he spotted a Facebook post of Liv. The youngster, a Cerebral Palsy Society member, was singing Rachel Platten’s Fight Song ... “I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me”. “I got a bit of dust in my eye watching that,” Andrew, 49, says. Liv’s mum Marcia Leslie had shared the post as part of the family’s fundraising for SDR surgery. “I had no idea who Liv was. No idea what SDR was. I had no idea whatsoever, really. So, I just reached out to her mum and said, ‘how can I help?’,” says Andrew, a former mechanic with the New Zealand Army. And so began the Hastings resident’s journey of raising funds to help Kiwi kids living with Cerebral Palsy. Andrew says he has never been a runner – “not at all”. In fact, when he joined the army in 1993, he was “the slowest dude in the platoon”. In 2014, he started doing cross fit, which is how he injured his back, resulting in two surgeries. While he was waiting for the first surgery, he saw the video of Liv singing and supported her by getting all the local cross fit gyms involved in a fundraiser. While recovering from the second surgery, Andrew read a book by Davey Goggins, an ex- Navy Seal in America who ran 100 miles in support of veterans. “I said ‘right, I’m running 100 miles and I’ll do it as a fundrasier’. That’s how it started. My son asked if I was going to do it for kids like Liv again? Why not?” Andrew, who has also had surgery on both knees, set up a Facebook page, Running Aotearoa For SDR , to support his fundraising and has since run 100 miles six times.