Charity Giving by the Stars
A lot of sport stars give generously to charity; they do humanitarian work, donate cash to charities and help those less fortunate than themselves. It is a very positive trend that we are seeing these days with so many stars giving to charity. Some of the biggest charity givers out there in the world are very famous athletes also and they use their star power to encourage other people to donate their money and time as well and it starts a very encouraging chain reaction of giving. New and innovative methods of charitable donating have arrived and athletes are trying different ways to raise as much money as they can.
With Wimbledon coming up very soon, a man who left his estate to Oxfam has come into the limelight again because of a tennis bet he made a few years ago. A man named Nicholas Newlife, who died last year, left his entire estate to Oxfam and also all of his outstanding bets that he had placed. He placed a bet 7 years ago that he thought Roger Federer would win Wimbledon seven times before the year 2020. The odds were huge on the bet at the time and as the Swiss tennis champion has already won Wimbledon six times; this bet could pay off in a big way for Oxfam, (Guardian News and Media Ltd, 2010). If Federer does win the English tournament for a seventh time the charity could receive almost £100,000. This shows that it is not only sports stars that give to charity but normal individuals do as well in the name of sports.
The athletes themselves are also big on giving and promote innovative ways to give and encourage people to do so are coming to light. Recently a few major American sports stars gathered together in a brokerage firm to try and raise money for various charities. The firm in question, BTIG, dedicates one day a year when they pledge all commission profits to a few notable charities. This year they decided to put a unique spin on it to raise the commission level a notch. They got athletes involved who were on the phones to buyers of shares and stocks to try to entice the callers to buy more shares, (Hearst Communications Inc, 2010). The sports stars were a major success and the former baseball and American football players helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity. The strategy seemed to work very well because whenever a buyer would find out that they were talking to a celebrity, they naturally bought more shares and more money was raised for the charities.
Another interesting method of raising money for charity is to get naked. And it isn’t the female athletes that are doing the stripping; it’s the men. Many athletes from Australia and around the world stripped off and posed for a calendar and DVD to help raise money for the Everyman Campaign. The Everyman Campaign is a charity dedicated to helping those with prostate and testicular cancer and trying to fund a cure. This is an acute male problem and sports stars came out in droves to help out, get their kits off and raise money for a very worthy cause. Australian sportsmen such as David Williams, Brett Kelly and David Conn all posed for the calendar as did British boxer Ricky Hatton, (The Daily Mirror, 2010). Posing for a naked calendar is an innovative but maybe not the most appropriate way to raise money for charity.
Maybe these stars could have just run in a marathon and raised funds to do it. But that has been done to death and by posing for a calendar, these athletes were able to raise money as well as do something new and innovative in the process.
More athletes and average people should do more for charity and it is by following the example set by athletes that we will be able to do it. It is a very encouraging sign that so many athletes are taking part in donating to charities, not only with their money but with their time as well. As the naked calendar shows us they are willing to donate their bodies to charity as well.