I had one of these moments not too long ago, I was loving my ride home through the London traffic after a productive day at work and getting my mind around visiting Kenya with the potential of having 400+ kids to have fun with!!

Imagines of screaming kids running around with a football held high above their heads as if they had just won the world cup jumped to the front of my mind!! Having spent a couple of months along the East Coast of Africa before I knew what a football meant to these kids!! There is little more that bring them such joy and excitement!!

I immediately began strategising and thinking how could I get the word out!! A mail?? No it had to be visial and capture some emotion, it needed to instil a sense of desparation – a message that said – these kids need us so please act now!!

First things first – the ball – it had to be tough, durable and inexpensive! I knew Mitre produced some quality balls and looked up what we distributed in the past – the Cheetah – I couldn’t find it but came across another Mitre – which read – ‘The worlds best training football, covered with a durable PVC layer to protect it and keep it from deteriating & it was reasonably priced!!

That was it Calcio was birthed – he was the chosen one to be distributed across Kenya!! He would make thousands of kids dreams come true!! At the time I wasn’t quite at that level and ordered 10 Calcio’s!

Next was the flyer…as with everything, there is a process and hopefully a progression…

Layout; pictures; quotes – it needed to present a snapshot of what these kids were looking for – a Calcio (football) !!

It wasn’t long before it all started coming

together and the message was strong enough – for a fiver folks could make plenty of kids dreams….

The final version was complete and ready to be sent out. I seriously didn’t expect much response and quite ambitiously noted in the mail a target of 50 balls.

On my previous trip, which was over 6 months we managed to get 45 balls donated, this time round I had a week and I personally had already donated 20 balls! The flyer was sent and with it the dream had began….

Within less than 2 min of sending the mail I received a mail back saying they would like to contribute, I said great that would be amazing, they replied we would like to contribute 30 balls so that you reached your target! What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had received one reply and I had already reached my target!! This was going to be interesting……

What followed next was nothing short of extraordinary – Calcio was reaching people, the idea for some reason was touching peoples hearts and making them dig deep and contribute to this worthy cause!! I can’t explain it but there was something unusual going on!!