One of America’s hottest new sports heroes is giving back to the Philippines, the country where he was born by funding the building of a children’s hospital in Mindanao.
Tim Tebow quarterback of National Football League team Denver Broncos was born in 1987 in Manila, where his Baptist parents were then serving as missionaries.
The $3-million, 30-bed facility will open in Davao City in mid-2013, the US-based charity CURE said on its website together with video message from the Denver Broncos quarterback.
“I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the country in which I was born, and I’m very excited about this project,” Tebow said in the message as he appealed for the public to join him in donating to the hospital’s fund.
“This hospital will change the lives of thousands of children in the Philippines.”
The Tebow CURE Hospital will specialize in bone disease and injuries for children, with about of a third of the young patients expected to be charity cases.
The hospital will house a “Timmy’s Playroom” to be used by children who undergo surgery.
The Tim Tebow Foundation, established in 2010, plans to build playrooms in children’s hospitals around the world, and the Davao one will be the first.
CURE spokesman Matt Shandera said that preparatory work was under way to build the hospital this year.
Tebow, a devout Christian dubbed by some in the press as “God’s quarterback,” is known for late-game heroics, leading to seemingly miraculous, come-from-behind victories for the Broncos in the National Football League.
(Source: Good News Pilipinas)
