[door Morten Kriek] I am looking for support from all Dutch cricket clubs for our new charity, the Cricket Fights Cancer Foundation.
A little bit about me; My name is Morten Kriek. I am 48 years old and started playing cricket when I was 4 years old with RKCC Union in Malden. Unfortunately that club no longer exists. In ’87 we moved to Haarlem where I started playing for Rood & Wit. It was that same year I was also selected for the national team for the 1st time, the Netherlands U15. As a senior I played a couple of seasons in Hilversum as well in the mid 90’s, before trying my luck as a club professional in the UK. With Kingstonian CC we won the Surrey League in 1998. I returned to Netherlands after that, and decided to concentrate on a professional career in banking technology. I did play one more season for VRA in Amsterdam, winning the Reserve Hoofdklaase with the 2nd XI, before returning to Rood & Wit to play social cricket only. In 2007 I moved to the UK again for work and in 2008 I moved to Ukraine, where I was the co-founder of the Kyiv Cricket League in 2009, which currently consists of 7 teams.
Disaster struck for me and my family earlier this year. After months of testing, I was diagnosed last February with 2 rare forms of blood cancer. I have been having chemotherapy since then, every three weeks. My most recent ws last Thursday and I will have at least one more on 29th of July. As a cancer patient I am now experiencing first hand the challenges of day-to-day life. Apart from research, there is also a lot to be done with regards to cancer awareness and improving the life of cancer patients. Following the example of former ice-hockey player John Cullen, who founded Hockey Fights Cancer, I started the Cricket Fights Cancer initiative. Through the global cricket community, we want to raise funds.
Activities include:
- Charity Match (21 August), details: https://cricketfightscancer.com/match/
- Charity Auction
- Fund Raisers
- Donations (GoFundMe)
At the moment it is just me starting the charity. I didn’t know a “chemo brain” was a real thing, but every time after I have had therapy, I struggle to think of more than one thing at the same time, and planning for the event and the different activities is hard. I hope you and your club can help me to make Cricket Fights Cancer a success, and help us hit cancer for six!
Some of the things you can do to help are:
- Place an article and/or banner in your club magazine and/or website
- Inform your members via mail/WhatsApp or other medium
- Collect money for a lumpsum donation via GoFundMe
- Shirt sponsorship of your team, or club’s sponsor on the shirts of the charity game (EUR 500 per team, EUR 750 for both teams)
- Attend the charity game with as many members as possible
- Donate towards our charity auction. To donate click on the button below.
Ideas for donations, apart from cricket memorabilia, can also be an hour practice session (or online video analysis) with your overseas coach if you have one, use for a half or full day of your cricket ground, club house or other facility, a business service that you or a member would like to offer.
I am sure there are a lot more opportunities that I am not thinking about at the moment. So when you have any ideas yourself, please let me know.
Best regards,
Morten Kriek
06-82703299