Richie McCaw's campaign for a young Samoan rugby star

Email
Print

Richie McCaw's campaign for a young Samoan rugby star

3News NZ

Richie McCaw is leading a fundraising campaign for Ben Leia (pictured)

Richie McCaw is leading a fundraising campaign for Ben Leia (pictured)

Richie McCaw is campaigning for a twenty-one year old Samoan very few kiwis will have heard of.

His name is Ben Leia.

Ben was a brilliant young rugby player until earlier this year when he broke his neck.

If you break your neck in Samoa and your home is one of the villages devastated by the tsunami, you are in real trouble.

There is simply no capacity to care for a tetraplegic there.

So, a group of kiwis, including Richie McCaw, the New Zealand Spinal Trust, specialists from the Burwood Spinal Unit, Habitat, the New Zealand Rugby Players' association, the House of Travel, and many more, have got together to beautifully give Ben a helping hand.

Campbell Live found out more about Richie’s campaign for Ben.

To donate money to help Ben you can text BEN to 3181. That will cost you $3 - and all funds go to The Ben Lei'a Trust C/o The NZ Spinal Trust.

Post a Comment

Before commenting, please take the time to read our moderation guide


(Won't be published)



Comments

13/08/2010 6:23:28 p.m.

Vic wrote:

All the best for the Black Friday Trust Dinner tonight. We will be toasting to you in Fiji. Great job JC for getting behind this and helping us raise funds for Ben.

13/08/2010 4:04:25 p.m.

Heather May wrote:

I made a txt donation last night and discovered that I had $3 deductede twice from my phone I checked an had only sent 1 txt. I texted to complain about this and discovered that I had made another donation I am not impressed and will not made any more txt donations.

13/08/2010 11:55:53 a.m.

To'o Vaega wrote:

Talofa Mr J Campell, my name is To'o Vaega former Manu Samoa. I would like to give you my Samoan jersey you can take it with you for the auction at the dinner. To help Ben Lei'a for his trust. Mr Campell and Richie McCaw thank you for last night's program.

13/08/2010 2:38:37 a.m.

Joe wrote:

Its this sort of stuff that makes me proud to be a kiwi.

12/08/2010 9:30:27 p.m.

Ngaire wrote:

Great to hear that the All Blacks are so kindly disposed to someone so badly hurt.

12/08/2010 9:27:46 p.m.

Carolyn Harrison wrote:

I was deeply touched by your story on Ben Lei'a and Richie McCaw's efforts to help him. As a mother of two eight year old Rugby fanatic's it was hard to watch, and needless to say we have donated to the appeal. However it struck me that if every rugby club in NZ levied its players just $1 annually on enrolement we could very easily make a big difference to Ben's life in terms of his on-going costs. Just a thought.

12/08/2010 8:43:48 p.m.

Andrew Hall wrote:

For everyone's information - here is the text of Richie McCaw's personal message to Ben...
Hi Ben,
I heard through a friend of mine Jim of the accident you suffered playing rugby.
I know my words won’t make things any easier for you, but I would like you to know that after hearing what has happened my thoughts are with you. It is never nice to hear of something like this coming from the sport we all love to play.
I will keep up to date with how things progress over the next little while.
Best wishes and kind regards
Richie McCaw