Bolton game designated ‘Rovers Go Wild – Project Philippines Appeal 2014’
Doncaster Rovers’ home game against Bolton Wanderers has been designated a fundraiser for charities in the Philippines led by the Rovers Foundation.
Rovers are one of only five clubs in the Football League chosen to support global projects as part of the Npower International Development Fund.
Part of the proceeds from the club’s Championship game against Bolton on April 8 at the Keepmoat Stadium will go to the Rovers Go Wild - Project Philippines appeal, particularly three charities - the Dumaguete Kalauman Development Centre, Little children of the Philippines and Victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
Doncaster Rovers Foundation has partnered with Npower and the charities to provide financial and operational support to help them overcome challenges and achieve their aims and objectives.
A group of individuals from the Foundation and Npower, including two students from the Rovers’ Education foundation, will travel to the city of Dumaguete in the Philippines for 12-days to provide expertise assistance and pass on the funds raised by the club and Foundation.
Npower is supporting the cost of travel and accommodation, so all funds raised by Rovers will go directly to the charities.
The Professional Football Association (PFA) community team, Kite Packaging, Lifeskills, Your Football World and Selby College have also kindly sponsored the two education foundation students’ trip, helping to increase revenue for the nominated charities.
An online JustGiving page has been set-up, and there will be a bucket collection, a Man of the Match text vote and players will be wearing t-shirts during the warm-up against Bolton to highlight the project.
Liam Scully, chief executive of Doncaster Rovers Foundation, said: “The Bolton game will allow Rovers fans to contribute to these fantastic causes and provide us with the support needed to allow our club to make a real difference to people’s lives.
“This is not the first time we have worked with the Philippines as the Foundation has donated Rovers clothing on a regular basis over the last five years.
“The organisations we are supporting are all registered charities and run solely for the purpose of helping the community. We have chosen them to be the focus of our development trip as we have direct links with their teams and we feel the skills and expertise we can offer will directly benefit the charities and the community it serves.
“Our trip to the Philippines was already planned before the devastation of typhoon Haiyan. We feel the trip should now focus on bringing some recreation and in turn, joy, to the healing country. We hope to create a positive impact on the Dumaguete community during and after our trip.”
Rovers are looking to establish a coaching academy in Dumaguete to create extracurricular and free activities for the school children, while empowering the older students to take responsibility and gain work experience and leadership skills to help them find employment.
In 2013, the Rovers Foundation took part in a visit to Kenya as part of the Npower International Development Fund and alongside the Football League Trust.
The Rovers Go Wild Africa 2013 project used football as a vehicle to engage and interact with communities who share similarities despite being thousands of miles apart. It ran a volunteering trip to Likoni in South Mombasa and saw five Doncaster based students attend with the Foundation to share the experience.
Fans can donate £1 to the project by texting DRFC50 to 70070 or visit http://www.justgiving.com/roversgowild14 to donate online.