Suppose you are a sports fan and you decide to go to a great sports match soon.
What do you do then? Simple; you check whether there is someone in your circle of friends who would also like to go, then go to the Internet, order tickets for the match, pay and that's it. Oh yes, you also check what the best public transport connection is or where you can park your car nearby.
Over 12 years ago, I found out that it is not that simple for everyone. I was sitting in the stands at a football match when a father comes and sits next to me with his son. The boy has Down syndrome and is intensely enjoying the atmosphere in the stadium and the match. I strike up a conversation with the father. In that conversation, he tells me how difficult it was to get here. Behavioural problems, fear in large groups, no own transport and public transport is too crowded, the boy has to be given medication through a tube in his stomach. At the residential facility, there are no volunteers to go with him and, due to staff shortages, supervisors cannot be missed for an evening either. It took father literally months to be able to arrange for his son to go to the stadium.
The story of the father and the image of the boy do not leave me. Surely it cannot be that someone with an intellectual disability cannot go to a sports match because no one is there? I decide to set up the Pole Position Foundation.
The objective is to work with enthusiastic volunteers to ensure that our Heroes do get to attend a sporting event, well
can meet their sports idols and also interact with each other and with top athletes
sports.
We are 12 years and over 1,000 heroes further. Still doing everything with lovely volunteers, organising our own sports days for Heroes from the Netherlands and Belgium and granting wishes in the Netherlands and abroad. And I......I am still very happy that I met the boy and his father 12 years ago and mega-proud of everything we have achieved with people who have given a piece of their
sacrificing free time to make someone else's life just a little nicer.
