A Couple on a Mission

Through #CoupleOnAMission, District 9675 Governor Renga Rajan and his wife Bharathi ran 2,025 kilometres each to raise $57,677 for The Rotary Foundation.

Every Rotary District Governor enters their leadership year with a vision, but few choose to measure that vision in sweat, blisters and early morning footpaths.

District 9675 Governor Renga Rajan did.

When Renga began his year as governor in July 2025, he and his wife, Bharathi, set out on a challenge that would turn pounding the pavement into service.

The concept, Bharathi’s Partner Project, was simple but formidable: each would run 2,025 kilometres across the 365 days of Renga’s governorship to raise funds for The Rotary Foundation. The campaign was tagged #CoupleOnAMission.

The idea began with a challenge from Bharathi, who believed that Renga’s ambitious goal of his district raising $250,000 required an equally meaningful personal commitment.

“If you are the leader setting a massive target, you need to set an example for others,” she told him.

Both experienced runners, the pair had completed annual 100-day running challenges since 2020. But this commitment required a different level of discipline. To reach the target, they needed to average approximately 5.6 kilometres each day, regardless of work commitments, Rotary events, travel and weather.

Renga embraced the idea immediately.

“It took me by surprise, but the next moment I said yes. But the biggest surprise was when Bharathi said, ‘I want to run it with you’. From that moment, #CoupleOnAMission was born.”

For Renga, completing the challenge required physical preparation and a determined mindset.

Most people think running is purely physical. It’s not. It’s fifty per cent physical and fifty per cent mental,” he said. “When you are on that final, gruelling kilometre, if you don’t have mental strength, you simply cannot cross the line.”

Their runs became a distinctive feature of official visits throughout the district. Rather than simply arriving for a meeting, Renga and Bharathi often ran through the local suburb first, then met club members for coffee or a Rotary event. The approach created a personal connection and brought the campaign directly into the communities it was designed to inspire.

Bharathi balanced her own kilometres with the considerable logistics behind the campaign, coordinating routes, club activities, donation records and Strava tracking.

“There is quite a lot of background work involved,” she said. “We had to coordinate with the clubs to find out which weekend they were doing a project, design safe pedestrian routes, manage the financial ledger of donations, and ensure our tracking app, Strava, recorded the kilometres correctly.”

The campaign also travelled well beyond Sydney. During trips to Japan, Malaysia and India, Renga packed his running shoes and maintained the challenge. Reaching the 1,000-kilometre mark in Madurai, India, prompted a solidarity run involving 50 local runners and a spontaneous fundraiser.

Yet the campaign was always about more than fitness or fundraising. Its central purpose was to support The Rotary Foundation’s work in disease prevention and treatment, including initiatives such as dialysis centres, neonatal ventilators and intensive-care equipment.

For Renga, the cause had deep personal resonance after witnessing the impact of a Rotary-supported dialysis facility in rural Tamil Nadu.

“It is not about my run, and it is not about the kilometres. It is about the purpose,” he said. “By sitting here in Australia, through our collective district effort, we are creating a legacy of survival across the globe.”

Bharathi said the project also showed others that significant service can begin with a manageable commitment.

“People saw us splitting the work and realised that spending just half an hour a week can create a profound impact,” she said. “We showed them that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

Renga completed his 2,025 kilometres on 28 June 2026. Bharathi reached her own 2,025-kilometre milestone on 30 June. Together, #CoupleOnAMission raised $57,677 for The Rotary Foundation, creating a lasting legacy of health, hope and humanitarian service.