SOS Romania - How You Can Help On Saturday

By John Harding
May 2 2002

Bath Rugby supporters are being asked to dig out their old playing kit and equipment before travelling to Kingsholm for the Saturday Premiership local derby game against highly flying Gloucester.

Collection points will be organised outside of the Gloucester ground to collect the donations to help the children in Romania be kitted out as the game takes off in that country. SOS Romania - Kit Aid was founded by Shell executive John Broadfoot after going to the country during a school rugby tour with his son. The sights he saw in the schools and playing areas sparked him in to action as soon as he was back in this county. Broadfoot recalls seeing a smiling Romanian 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.

From the experience of his own rugby sons he knew there were several pairs of boots and shirts lying around doing nothing . So to test out the potential Broadfoot collected kit from just ten schools to see how much kit might be available on a wider scale. The test was an outstanding success both in terms of quantity and quality of kit donated and Broadfoot persuaded the International Rugby Board to endorse and fund it's expansion to over 200 schools in this country.

Broadfoot would eventually like to have over 2000 schools and clubs on board distributing kit throughout the world whether it be townships in South Africa, emerging countries like India, Chile or inner city areas in this country