Tomorrow will make exactly 2 weeks since Special Envoy for Women and Children, Kim Barrow held the Inspiration Telethon to raise half a million dollars for the Inspiration Center.
And now the Football Federation of Belize is hoping the public is still inspired to give them – half a million for their historic run to the Gold Cup.
They're asking each Belizean to donate at least 1 dollar to fund the National Team's first appearance in the Cup, which will be played next month in the US.
They've organized their own Telethon, which happens tomorrow, and this evening, 7News spoke to a representative of the FFB, who explained how it will work:
Marlon Kuylen - Executive Member, FFB
"Well we're hoping that the Belizean citizens continue to display the patriotism that they have or they did when we were playing in Costa Rica. We can only do as good as our funds allow us to. Right now that the team is in full camp which means 4-5 days they'll be at the federation, it's costing us around $13,000 a week. We have to train in the Mountain Pine Ridge because of the altitude in Salt Lake City where we will play Costa Rica so the players need to do that kind of training to get used to it. Then again there's the diet, a special diet that they have to abide by and if we don't get the funding, something will have to suffer."
Daniel Ortiz
"What kind of contributions are you guys expecting from the Belizean public, a dollar, a quarter, even one cent?"
Marlon Kuylen
"Anything right now because we just had a telethon two weeks ago and they raised $500,000 - we're not expecting corporations to give a whole pile of money. We're not asking for big donations - if we get it then great. What we're asking is that each citizen gives a dollar. If we have 350,000 living in Belize then that will be $350,000 then also the Belizean - Americans they are excited about this, they are planning excursions to go to the games - we've gotten a lot of good response from them and so Florida will be having a simultaneous telethon again with ten lines and they are targeting the entire US and so far they've been getting some good response. So if each Belizean out there gives $1usd then we'll make our target which is $500,000."
Channel 7 will air the telethon live starting at 8:00 am.
The Entire National Team will be at the Princess Hotel the entire day to interact with the football fans that stop in.
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