Mothers Day Classic

The Mother’s Day Classic is Australia’s most inspirational, cause-driven community event. Every year, thousands of Australians come together on Mother’s Day to start their Mother’s Day with purpose. Our aim is to unite and inspire the community, create a fun and engaging event experience, to celebrate and remember those touched by breast and ovarian cancer and to raise life-saving funds for research.

The Mother’s Day Classic was founded in 1998 by Mavis Robertson AM, former National Chair of Women in Super (WIS) and Louise Davidson AM. Mavis witnessed a breast cancer fun run overseas and she and Louise were inspired to create something similar in Australia. Together they planted the seed among the Women in Super (WIS) network.

At the time, Industry Superannuation firms were noticing that breast cancer was one of the common reasons for accessing death and disability benefits. Creating an inspiring event to raise critical funds for breast cancer research was the perfect way for WIS to advocate for women’s health and so the Mother’s Day Classic was born. Thanks to research, the relative five-year survival rate for breast cancer has increased from 84 per cent to 92 per cent over this period. However, there’s still more to be done to achieve the goal of zero deaths from breast cancer.

Tragically, treatment advances in ovarian cancer have been limited, and treatment approaches have barely changed in 30 years. The survival rate for ovarian cancer is just 49 per cent and there remains no early detection test.

That's why, in 2024, the Mother's Day Classic Foundation has decided to go even further and also raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation. From 2024, Mother’s Day Classic participants will be provided with the option taking part in support of and fundraising for breast cancer research, ovarian cancer research or both.

From this day on, we’ve made it our mission to stop both ovarian cancer and breast cancer in their tracks.