Dad’s day of days

By Danielle Galvin
PAKENHAM’S Andrew Streader will be celebrating an extra special Father’s Day this year.
Last week, the single dad was named the Victorian Father of the Year.
On Friday he will be turning 41 and it’s surely a birthday he won’t forget.
“What more could a father ask for on his birthday?” he asked.
The father of two, Lachlan and Hayley, shared the YMCA Cardinia Community Father of the Year award with former champion jockey David Taggart from Catani.
Andrew was surprised to win the community award, let alone be named the Victorian Father of the Year.
He gave an emotional acceptance speech at the Melbourne Town Hall on Wednesday.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, let me tell you,” chairman of the Father’s Day Council Don Parsons said.
In 2008, Andrew’s wife Tina died after battling bone cancer.
In the years since her death, the Streader family has grown and the Pakenham machine operator has found new love.
He thanked his fiancée Tiana Moore and her daughter Kimberley at the Cardina LiFE Centre last week.
Eleven-year-old Hayley was behind the nomination.
Hayley has neurofibromatosis, a disease where non-cancerous tumours grow on the nerve tissue.
“My dad always makes me feel wanted in life,” she said in her nomination.