A Grahamstown sportsman recently helped a 12-year-old boy, who suffers from diabetes, to realise his dream of meeting Springbok Bryan Habana.
A Grahamstown sportsman recently helped a 12-year-old boy, who suffers from diabetes, to realise his dream of meeting Springbok Bryan Habana.
For the past two seasons the Axxess DLS Ocean Racing Series has recognised the Reach for a Dream Foundation as their charity of choice and have helped realise over 24 dreams so far.
Local athlete, Graham Carlson, who is the sports director at Kingswood College, got involved with the project when he saw one of the dreams on the list was a pupil wanting to meet his hero, Springbok and Western Province rugby star, Bryan Habana.
Carlson has taken part in a number of the Ocean racing Series sea swims and also accompanied a number of Kingswood College pupils who have competed in the Axxess DLS series.
Carlson and Kingswood College began raising funds for the project, which saw Carlson travel to George where he picked up Zhaun-Pierre and took him to Cape Town to watch a Super 14 rugby game, where Habana scored two spectacular tries.
Zhuan-Pierre and his mother also stayed at Southern Sun for the weekend. Carlson said they were well looked after by the Western Province media liason team and after the game Zhaun Pierre got to meet Habana himself.
Carlson, who is a former Border rugby player, spent some time with some of the management staff whom he knows from his playing days, as well as when coaching Allister Coetzee.
Started in January 2006, the Nelson Mandela Bay Ocean Racing Series is one of the largest beachfront events in Africaand is unique to Nelson Mandela Bay.
The series offers an opportunity for open water swimmers, fun runners, walkers and ocean paddlers to come together on a fortnightly basis to take part in a world class event.
