Four years ago in October 2014, an idea was born to create a partnership between the Wellington Phoenix Supporters Group, Yellow Fever, and Ronald McDonald House Charity Wellington. This grew into an amazing initiative called ‘Fever Dreams’ in which tickets were donated every Wellington home game to the families of the sick children being cared for at the charity based in Newtown.
Over the course of the 2014/15 Hyundai A-League season, ‘Fever Dreams’ managed to raise a staggering $4000 to go towards the charity.
Since its inception, the Yellow Fever has been able to pay for a match day experience for families whose sick child is receiving treatment and who are staying at Ronald McDonald House.
Now in 2019, Fever Dreams is still going strong and the initiative took an even bigger step this last week as they donated 50 tickets to the Ronald McDonald House in Westmead, New South Wales.
This amazing offer of kindness provided families and volunteers the opportunity to attend the Wellington Phoenix Hyundai A-League Round 20 fixture against Sydney FC at Campbelltown Sports Stadium.
Belinda Woolford, CEO of Ronald Mcdonald House Charities Greater Western Sydney, expressed how important the collaboration and these types of experiences are to families of the charity.
”The Wellington Phoenix and Yellow Fever have been longtime supporters of RMHC Wellington, it is wonderful that they were able to extend this support to Ronald McDonald House Westmead, and even more meaningful that Wellington Phoenix members, that couldn’t attend the game, donated their tickets to families staying at the House.
”Giving the families that stay at Ronald McDonald House Westmead (RMHW) the opportunity to attend an A-League game, with an international team, shows our families that they are supported.
”The majority of our families are from regional areas, for some of them it would have been the first opportunity to attend a Hyundai A-League game.
”For the charity, it is important that we can provide experiences to families that ease the burden of their current situation, an opportunity for them to have a VIP family day out.”
Matt Weldon-Smith, a member of the Yellow Fever and founding member of the initiative, also expressed his delight at the partnership.
”They are an amazing charity and if we can give something back to the community we will and we can turn them into Wellington Phoenix fans in the process.
”We love the game day experience and we want to share the game we love with families and children.”
Matt added his delight at the number of tickets donated to the charity for the Campbelltown game against Sydney on 23 February.
”It blew me away, I was hoping we might be able to take 20 tickets over to Sydney but to end up with 50 showed how great the Phoenix fans are.
”While we can’t be there, we want other people to enjoy the experience of a Wellington Phoenix game.”
You can find more about the amazing work of Ronald McDonald House Charity, on their website; rmhc.org.nz
To find out more about the Yellow Fever initiative, Fever Dreams head to their website; www.yellowfever.co.nz
