Organisers of the annual ‘For The Love Of Golf Tournament’ plan to raise a whopping $300,000 dollars from the proceeds of this year’s edition to procure a flow cytometer machine which will assist in the treatment of paediatric cancer patients.
Ejiro Ogomigo, the cordinator of the championship which is in its fourth edition made this disclosure while reeling out activities lined up to make this year’s event achieve bigger impact.
Said he:” We are all here to announce the commencement of Season Four of For The Love of Golf tournament. We usually organise an annual golf tournament at the Ikeja Golf Club where we raise funds from members and corporate bodies and proceeds from the event is directed towards cancer treatment nationwide.
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“Before now, the proceeds have always been donated to LASUTH and LUTH but this year, we want to focus more on corporate bodies to enable us raise more funds and make greater impact.
“Our long term goal is to build a cancer centre where indigent paediatric cancer patients can receive quality treatment and this will require a lot of funds.
“The only way we can get the support of corporate bodies is to create awareness in such a way that the For The Love Of Golf will become a household name. It will then become easy to sell to coprporate bodies.
“We have a goal in the interim to raise about $300,000 to procure a Flow Cytometer and the next three years, we intend to procure a Linear Accelerator that will partner with an existing, well established cancer centre.”
The founder of the For The Love Of Golf, Dr Florence Adesola Falaiye described the project as the work of God she and her crew members are doing through the golf channel adding that the ultimate aim is to help paediatric cancer patients.
“This is a work of God that we are doing through the golf channel. We play golf via a robust tournament and use it to raise funds for cancer treatment. The aim is to help children living with cancer.
“We started in 2020 and the proceeds were donated to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) paediatric cancer ward. In the second year, the proceeds were donated to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and in the third year, we came back to LASUTH to donate equipments and drugs to the LASUTH paediatric cancer ward.”
Dr Falaiye also stated that there are plans to extend the project to some university teaching hospitals outside Lagos as well as some Africa countries in the future.
“The aim is to expand the scope by taking the initiative to outside Lagos and to other Africa countries in the future.
“But for this year, we hope to donate to the University College Hospital (UCH) and we want to make bigger achievements despite the present economic realities. That’s why we are involving more corporate bodies” she said
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Chairman of the Ikeja Golf Club, Olusina Akinyemi assured that the club will continue to support the noble gesture of the initiators of the For The Love Of Golf like it has done since the first edition.
“At the IKeja Golf Club, we have the reputation of being the friendliest golf club in Nigeria. And it’s a reputation that has come from caring for humanity over the years. For The Love of Golf is one of such gestures and this is quite special because it tries to come to the aid of children suffering from cancer.” Akinyemi began.
“I want to acknowledge the efforts of Dr Falaiye because the passion with which she drives this initiative is admirable. She is indeed a beautiful woman inside and outside. My role basically is to encourage more people to support her in helping kids suffering from paediatric cancer.
“We are not just going to limit our call for support from only members of the Ikeja Golf Club but also well meaning individuals around the world.”
For The Love of Golf was founded by Dr Florence Adesola Falaiye, a golfer and Managing Director of AFKAR Printing and Publishing Company Limited, to alleviate poverty, assist the needy, and most sisgnificantly, to focus on efforts geared towards battling paediatric cancer.