HKFC Mini Rugby helps Po Leung Kuk kids to enjoy a Merry Christmas!
HKFC Mini Rugby helps Po Leung Kuk kids to enjoy a Merry Christmas!
20 Jan 2021
In December, despite rugby training not taking place and most of the Club facilities being restricted, parents and kids made a huge effort to donate and drop off LOTS of gifts for Po Leung Kuk children.
These gifts were gratefully received by PLK and have enabled HKFC to reach a wider audience with not just the target of all 167 children permanently staying at nearby Leighton Road receiving gifts but 300 children in small group homes across Hong Kong too! A massive thank you to our donors, sponsors and volunteers to reach further than the PLK kids who normally join mini rugby each week.
Sonia Chan, Director of Studies at Po Leung Kuk said, “On behalf of Po Leung Kuk, we want to send a big thank you to members, coaches, parents and volunteers from HKFC for being so supportive to us. 2020 been a challenge for most, but we are very excited to start 2021 with a fresh start and hope to get the kids back to rugby soon too.”
The Rugby Section have a relationship with PLK going back to 2008 and have offered places and kit each year to encourage PLK kids based nearby on Leighton Road to help build their skills and confidence through rugby. Unfortunately due to COVID kids haven’t been able to join rugby since February and have been in lockdown for much of the second half of the year. Find out more here www.poleungkuk.org.hk/en
The mini rugby community came together the following weekend with many kind volunteers including mini players (plus brothers and sisters!) joining the sorting of all the donations and packing up as gifts to the children. Many thanks particularly to Mandy Lee along with the Housekeeping team for helping us to collect and sort so many donations safely in a socially distanced way in the Lockhart Room.
Each child aged from 3-18 years old were able to receive a homemade Christmas card signed by minis players, a Natixis HKFC waterproof/wet bag with age appropriate notepads or colouring books, headphones, pens, toys, gift vouchers for the older kids and some sweet treats too. Thanks to the generosity of our community there were also lots of extra sweets and candies that PLK House Parents distributed at Christmas events like movie nights over the festive period as an bonus treat.
Particular thanks to our sponsors at Latham & Watkins, who rallied round and provided a notebook and chocolate biscuits for each child!
170 headphones were very generously donated by Kieran Pollard and buddyphones.com, who has a son in the under 14s and a daughter in the under 10s rugby teams.
Whilst we weren’t able to hand over the presents directly from our Minis̓ kids to the PLK children directly this time we look forward to seeing our friends at Po Leung Kuk soon to enjoy a better 2021!
Tom Wheeler
Mini Rugby Charity Lead