Springboks donation to Missionvale Care Centre in PE

Four members of the Springbok squad who hail from the Eastern Cape on Tuesday donated R15,000 on behalf of the team to the Missionvale Care Centre in Port Elizabeth.

Siya Kolisi, Jan Serfontein, JJ Engelbrecht and Paul Jordaan visited the centre on Tuesday morning. The money comes from the team’s internal fund and the players themselves decided which local charity to support.

Their choice fell on the Missionvale Care Centre, where 250 children get their primary schooling, while there is also a medical centre and feeding scheme for residents of the Missionvale township.

Kolisi, who grew up in Zwide township around the corner from Missionvale, addressed some of the children present at the cheque handover, where Russell Viljoen, principal of the school, accepted the donation.

“If you can dream it, you can do it, but you should always work hard to achieve your dreams,” Kolisi told the children.

“Our parents and teachers play an integral role in ensuring our children believe anything is possible, it doesn’t matter where you come from.

“It’s a huge honour and very humbling for us to visit the Missionvale Care Centre and make a small contribution.”

Apart from the children and their teachers, a number of volunteers from Ireland and the USA were also very excited to meet the Boks.

The Missionvale Care Centre Academy was started informally in 1999 by Sister Ethel Normoyle, who held her first classes under a now iconic tree in the Missionvale township way back in 1988. The school was formally registered with the South African Department of Education in 2007.