Meet the Donegal man who has raised millions to help treat and prevent blindness

A Letterkenny native this week continued his incredible charity drive that has now raised $3.2 million (€1.95million) for a foundation that focuses on treating and preventing blindness and other vision problems.

Mike Toner, from Middle Road, Ballyraine, is the son of Margaret and the late Michael, went to Australia in 2003, like many others expecting to work on the building sites and be home in a year.

Twenty-one years on, he’s still there. And since then, through two of his loves - music and fitness - he has been an incredible donator to the Fred Hollows Foundation.

Mike, all those years ago, was enjoying his time in Melbourne and got sponsored at his next post at Central Station Records, which was a boutique record store formed in Melbourne in 1976 and is now a multi-million dollar international dance music empire. He and a colleague would organise music events from here.

After getting his permanent Australian residence, Mike founded Thick as Thieves in 2009, a touring and events agency, bringing the biggest house and techno artists to Australia, with Carl Cox, Patrick Topping and Reuben Keeney to Australia.

“I remember in Letterkenny once, when I was studying. There was a young albino man, who hit his head on a platform,” Mike tells DonegalLive. “People were laughing at him and I went over to give him a hand. His head was cut and I was annoyed that folk were laughing at him. He shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘This sort of thing happens all the time’. I went home that night and it really broke me, thinking: ‘Why is this happening to this poor guy?’

“I’ve always had this thing in my head that I wanted to help these people with sight difficulties. When I set up the company, I found out about the Fred Hollows Foundation. Nine out of 10 people in the world who are blind, don’t have to be blind. A simple operation can remove cataracts (the cloudy area) in their eyes. He started going into third-world countries and started training local doctors on how to do this operation.

“The knock-on effect of this is massive. If someone, for example, is blinded with cataract disease, then their children have to stay at home to mind them, or if the children have the disease then it impacts the parents’ ability to work. So if you can solve that problem, it will, on average, positively impact four people around the sufferer. The Fred Hollows Foundation can do this for $25Aus (€15.30) and that just blew me away.

Mike promised himself he would help the foundation, if he were in a position to do so and by 2012 had devised a plan to have music shows playing a part in the charity work.

“If we put a given show on sale and it sold out, then I would approach the DJ and ask would they play another show,” he adds. “We would staff it, and that other stuff, with the money on the door going to the Fred Hollows Foundation.

“We were raising maybe $20,000 to $30,000 (€12,250 to €18,355) per event and I would send it to the Foundation. They said the money coming from us was more significant than most they were earning for, plus they began to get a lot of people aged between 18 and 30 following their social media, and in turn, continuously following their charity.”

By 2015, Mike decided to start training for an Ironman Triathlon and saw the potential that existed for fundraising in fitness events.

“It was the polar opposite to the perception of someone who works late hours in nightclubs,” he adds. “I was training all year and thought I might as well just throw up a sponsorship link to see if anyone would back it.

Not expecting much, Mike raised $30,000 and a year later, had a plan in his head to expand that support. There was an event called Coastrek, which was a 50k run, trek or walk, which would be contested in teams of four.

A year later, the training group had expanded to eight - two teams - and from there it just kept going. By the third year, 2019, there were six teams of four. With interest continuing to balloon, Mike offered to train anyone who wished to join them in his Thick as Thieves team, and in return, each would try and raise $1,000 (€610) for the Foundation.

“We had a couple of people who were really getting into fitness and were really enjoying the journey,” Mike adds. “Some who struggled to run 2k were thinking about marathons.”

With queries constant, Mike posted on Facebook to tell anyone interested to just pop him a message. The following morning, much to his surprise, there were 120 in his inbox.

However, when Covid kicked in, the event, which was pencilled in for that dastardly month of March 2020, was postponed till August. Mike’s group kept in touch virtually and he encouraged them to keep training.

“Everyone was keeping in touch and supporting one another, training away, and that was important at a time when people were struggling with their mental health.”

Melbourne’s lockdowns were strict, though, and by July the event which had initially been rescheduled, was cancelled altogether.

“People had been training for six months and by the time the restrictions eased, I spoke to a friend involved in the local council,” Mike adds. “He suggested running my own event. I knew little or nothing about running a fitness event, but he explained that in ways, it was just like running a music event - instead of a DJ Booth, there was a start and stop line, similar medical stations, things like that.”

Quick as Thieves was born, with 124 entrants in year one, in November 2020, which raised $250,000 (€153,000), the second, with 200 taking part, gathering $600,000 (€367,000), where Mike ran blindfolded to highlight the challenges blind people have with something as simple as exercising.

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After four stagings, there’s been an unbelievable $2.5million (€1.5million) raised and if you include the music events the total is $3.2million (€1.95million).

This year’s staging took place on Saturday, with four entry levels - a 10k, a half-marathon, a full marathon and 100km, which Mike had done 12 months beforehand. Last weekend, ​he opted to help out Achilles Melbourne, the city’s premier running club for people with a disability, who run regular training sessions at the iconic Tan running track.

“ I ran with Mick Cameron, who lost his eyesight because of a degenerate disease at 36,” Mike adds. “He tells me he spent 15 or 20 years, on the couch at home depressed, and when he was in his mid-fifties, he decided to make a change and came to Achilles. He couldn’t run 1.5k to being with and he kept at it and at it, and on Saturday I went with him and he ran his first ever marathon.”

There was another heartwarming story, which was picked up by Sky News Australia, with Cooper Smith, who has cerebral palsy, completing the event.

“I’m very passionate about the work that the Fred Hollows Foundation do,” Mike adds. “In 2017 I went to Cambodia with them and it was amazing. After the destruction of the Civil War, the place was in ruins. They would convert old schools and things like that, and convert them into small, makeshift surgeries, which would be made up before the doctors arrived.

“I travelled with the doctors and when we got there, there were hundreds of people from all the rural villages waiting. They were all blind. Some had limbs missing, all queueing for these three beds.

“On the first bed, they would get anaesthetic sprayed into their eye and after 15 minutes, once it settled, they were moved onto the next bed, where they would get a huge needle inserted into their eyeball and that would anaesthetise the side of their face.

“On the third bed, they would have their eyeballs slit, the cataract removed, like a fish eye, which would be replaced by this little lens, which costs $2 to make. They would be bandaged up and sent up and the next day, they would wake up with perfect eyesight. It was like watching a miracle. I’d like to do all I can to help continue this.”

You can donate to the charity here

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