Dear Friends of Tennis and New Zealand,
We are about ready to close the books on our very successful earthquake relief fundraiser, Rally for Christchurch, held in Portland on May 7th.
As of today, we will be sending a check for $18,875.75 ($US) to Adopt A Christchurch Family.
We selected Adopt A Christchurch Family as our recipient charity because we wanted to provide direct assistance to families badly impacted by the quake. As you all know by now, I—along with many other players competing in the World Championships—was taken in by a generous family (thank you Bob and Bindy Grace!) after our hotels were damaged and condemned. These wonderful, generous families flocked to the makeshift relief center in the open-air park where we were to spend the night (in the rain, as it turned out) and one by one took players into their homes. The Grace family alone welcomed in 9 of us.
I cannot thank all of you enough for your generous support of this event. We had 10 great pros, 10 generous amateurs and over 100 spectators, donors and silent auction attendees. What a turnout. Thank you.
Christchurch continues to be rattled by significant aftershocks (some 7,000+ since we were there in February), yet the world seems to have forgotten. Devastation in Japan, tornados, killer heat waves—you name it, there has been plenty to take attention away from the pain that still lingers in Christchurch.
The wonderful, warm and generous people of Christchurch still need our help and it is with great pride that I can say to our friends down there: WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN and we’re sending some financial help your way.
A huge, huge thank you to Brenda Moore and Mike Tammen. When I first approached Mike back in March about putting something together to help our friends in New Zealand, I had no idea what might be possible. I thought we could get a few folks together to play tennis and maybe send a few thousand bucks down to Christchurch. Mike said “yes” immediately, and then went to work organizing the tennis and secured the best venue in Portland for us to host our tennis round robin and auction. A big THANK YOU to the Racquet Club staff and all the members for loaning us your club for a day!
Mike’s best move, however, was enlisting the help of his wife Brenda. The success of our event absolutely without question would not have been possible without Brenda’s efforts. It doesn’t even need to be said, really—all of you who played, attended or otherwise participated in our Rally for Christchurch no doubt saw Brenda’s fingerprints on every aspect of that great day. Thank you, Brenda.
Thanks, as well, to our friends at Matchpoint International, the US-based charity that is acting as our conduit so all of our donors can receive tax-deductible charitable receipts. We forwarded all donations to Matchpoint, which in turn is sending a significant check to Adopt A Christchurch Family.
It feels very good to be providing this support to Christchurch. You all should be proud of your individual contribution to Rally for Christchurch’s success. Thank you.
Oh, and please let me know if you want to help us top the $20,000 mark…..we are sooooooo close! J
Kia Ora,
Dougal Williams, CFA
