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Wizards chip
in to help orphans
Team contributes
soccer items that will be used to help kids
learn game in Africa.
By Pete
Grathoff - The Kansas City Star
The new Wizards ownership has
made a big splash spending money on a new
training facility and front-office staff, but it
has also made an impact in smaller ways as well.
At least that’s the case for
T.J. Widbin.
Widbin, a freshman at
Southeastern Community College in Burlington,
Iowa, is organizing a six-week trip to Kenya,
where he hopes to hold a soccer clinic this
summer for an orphanage.
“I just e-mailed the Wizards
and the Chicago Fire, because those are the two
teams closest to us, and the Wizards are the
ones that got back to me,” Widbin said. “(The
Wizards) called me two hours after I sent the
e-mail and were right there offering help. I
really appreciate it.”
The Wizards already have
donated soccer balls and goalie jerseys, and the
team has plans to send along stopwatches, cones
and possibly nets before Widbin leaves in June.
“His is a really great cause,”
said Erin Lawless, director of community
relations for the Wizards.
Widbin traveled to Kenya two
years ago after the owner of the orphanage spoke
to his church in Wever, Iowa, and others around
Burlington, which is in southeast part of the
state.
Initially, he was interested
in traveling to Africa after watching the
television show “Survivor.” But seeing the kids,
ages 4 to 13, changed his priorities.
“It was definitely different,”
Widbin said. “It’s 22 kids, and all their
parents died of AIDS. It’s amazing what the kids
have gone through, and they’re young. But
they’re so happy to see you and for you to be
with them.”
Widbin said the children
didn’t have much of anything.
“They would play soccer, but
they didn’t have any equipment, and they played
with rocks or whatever they could find,” Widbin
said. “So I came up with this idea that if we
could get some soccer equipment and we could
help all the kids over there with kind of an
after-school thing, we could keep them busy.”
But with the help of the
Wizards, Widbin hopes to improve the lives of
those who live thousands of miles away.
He hopes the soccer clinics
can become a regular part of the kids’ lives,
even after he heads back to the United States.
“After seeing it firsthand, it
makes you appreciate what you have and makes you
want to continue to help out as much as you
can,” he said. “It would have been impossible to
come back and not do anything about it, just let
it be.” |
