Gladstone boxing club donates $500 dodgeball prize to sick boy

The Gladstone Amateur Boxing Club turned a dodgeball win into direct help when it claimed the $500 grand prize at the Annual Dodgeball Fundraiser and handed the full amount to six-year-old Nayte and his family. The event was staged at the Calliope Roosters Sporting Complex and organized by Shane Byatt, with the day built around support for Nayte, who is living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

The Gladstone Regional Council listed the tournament as a fundraiser with raffle prizes on the day and said every dollar raised went toward Nayte’s care. The listing set the event window from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., giving the gathering a clear charitable purpose beyond the court itself. What made the result stand out was the final move: the boxing club did not keep the prize money, it passed it on in full.

That fit the profile of a club that describes itself as a non-profit made up of volunteer members. The boxing club has also taken part in charity bouts before to raise awareness and funds for children facing serious illness, and the dodgeball fundraiser extended that pattern into a different sporting setting. Instead of gloves and ropes, the club brought its name to a faster, lighter bracket and still left with a donation for a family under pressure.

Calliope Roosters Sporting Complex gave the fundraiser a setting built for mixed events. The venue bills itself as a multi-sport and event complex with basketball, futsal and netball facilities, along with an audio-visual system and commercial kitchen, the kind of setup that can handle both competition and the crowd around it. A post about the day called it a brilliant event for a wonderful cause and thanked Shane Byatt plus the local businesses and organizations that backed it.

For Nayte, the afternoon ended with more than a symbolic gesture. The winning team’s $500 prize became immediate support, and the fundraiser delivered exactly the kind of result its organizers were chasing: a competitive day, a named beneficiary and a boxing club willing to give the winnings away.