A month ago, Devonport-raised Nic Davidson and his friend Samantha Gash came up with an idea to raise money for bushfire relief.
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In just two weeks, they'd raised more than $1 million, surpassing even the pair's most ambitious expectations.
Mr Davidson, an entrepreneur based in Melbourne, and Ms Gash are passionate runners and started the Relief Run initiative, a virtual event allowing people all over the world to participate in their own 21 kilometre half marathons, as well as 5 kilometre runs.
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The worldwide event took place principally on the weekend of 18-19 January, with people pulling on their runners in countries from Chile and Ecuador to Dubai and Poland.
There have been more than 19,000 entries to date and transactions have been recorded in more than 90 countries.
Each entry costs $50, with all proceeds going to the Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund. Mr Davidson and Ms Gash personally presented a $1 million cheque to the Australian Red Cross.
Mr Davidson, who has lived in Melbourne for the past 12 years, said he'd been passionate about running ever since he'd took part in Little Athletics at East Devonport as a child.
"I think the run was something that people wanted to do because it felt like they could actually do something, rather than just giving money," Mr Davidson said. "They could actually go, 'Cool, I'm going to go out and do something as well'."
"Because everyone feels quite helpless [about the bushfires].
"It was really amazing to see people take ownership of these different community runs and really share and get behind it all."
Mr Davidson said Relief Run was being left open to people until the end of February and that any additional money raised would be donated to the Red Cross.
At the time of print, $1,134,158 had been raised through Relief Run, with 49 per cent of donations coming from outside Australia.
"It's pretty impressive that it's not big corporate sponsors jumping on-board and putting like $30,000-$40,000 in," Mr Davidson said.
"This is all microdonations and it's what's been awesome about this bushfire appeal.
"People just want to get involved and do something."