The club this week got together old sets of kit and rugby equipment and donated it to SOS Kit Aid, a charity that recycles sports kit for the benefit of young people and rugby teams in the UK and overseas.
Kit from the mini and junior section as well as from the senior rugby section was assembled and we hope that it will make a difference in other people’s lives. We are looking forward to tracking the kit and seeing where it ends up in the world.
David Broadwell and Paul Johnson from SOS Kit Aid collected the kit from the club and said that the charity and everyone that donates makes a positive impact in peoples lives.
Corné du Rand and Ross Peacock handed over the kit on behalf of the club.
Corné said: “It is a great way for clubs to play a small part in helping others. We are very fortunate with what we have here at the club, and to be able to donate this kit gives us great pleasure knowing that SOS Kit Aid will add some TLC and then pack it all up to be sent to a destination in need.”
Read more about the charity and their work here and via their website: http://www.soskitaid.com
SOS Kit Aid was founded by rugby dad, John Broadfoot, during a visit to Romania. The sight of a smiling eight-year-old boy running with the ball under one arm whilst he used the other to hold up his shorts made him want to do something about it.
He knew that his sons had several pairs of boots and shirts lying around at home. So to test out the potential, John collected kit from ten schools to see how much was available on a wider scale. The test was an outstanding success both in terms of quantity and quality of kit, which resulted in the International Rugby Board (now called World Rugby) endorsing and funding the expansion to over 1,000 schools and clubs.
With the support of the World Rugby, kit has been donated by schools, clubs and kit manufacturers across the UK, with an estimated value of over £5million delivered to date. Over 200,000 youngsters in 27 developing countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and the South Seas have received quality used and new kit, and there are a further 59 countries on the waiting list.
The key idea of John’s initiative is to give young people the opportunity to play and enjoy sport, whilst also making use of kit that would otherwise become environmentally damaging waste. The programme has saved over 1000 tonnes of environmentally damaging CO2 emissions to date.
Financial support and recognition is given to the project by the World Rugby – the world's governing body for Rugby Union. Their funding helps to cover the cost of storage and the logistics of collecting and transporting rugby kit to the countries that need it the most.
LONDON SCOTTISH’S CHALLENGE TO OTHER CLUBS
London Scottish would like to challenge all other rugby clubs to do a bit of a kit audit and get together everything you don’t need or could part with and then get in touch with SOS Kit Aid. The donations will make a positive impact in communities where it ends up.
