A 10-year-old Canterbury boy with cerebral palsy has done a 10km walk today to raise funds for a several-thousand-dollar trike he needs because he can't ride a bike.
And at the end of today's walk was a very big surprise.
Zack Lappin is a bright, cheerful and energetic kid who's eyeing up his future career as a scientist or nutritionist. He also happens to have cerebral palsy, which can make life pretty tough.
"It's quite hard to do because I like to play rugby with my friends and then I have to get sometimes excluded, and I have to do other roles like reffing," he says.
"He has, however, been bullied at school on and off over the past two years as the gap between what he and his peers can do physically has got bigger," says mother Helen.
The right side of his body doesn't work properly so he can't ride a normal bike.
"Zach hasn't got the balance to ride a standard bike, so to get the funding for a specialised trike he decided he was going to do a sponsored walk," says Ms Lappin.
So today family and friends gathered for a 10-kilometre walk around Lake Pegasus to raise the $3000 needed for that trike. But what Zack doesn't realise is at the end of this walk waits a surprise that's about to make his day.
As they neared the end, there was a sprint to the finish line, and then the widest smile you've ever seen as Zach got the bike he wanted before all the money was raised.
He already has plans for what to do with it.
"I'll pretty much ride all the hills in Christchurch," he says.
And this this afternoon now marks the start of many more like it.
Newshub.
