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Community visits spread some Christmas joy

CanTeen is an organisation who empower and support young people living with cancer and they welcomed United youngsters Jake Barker-Daish and Mitch Bevan to join over 75 CanTeen members at a barbeque lunch hosted by Tallebudgera Lions Club

The meet and greet session was an opportunity for the organisation’s members to get acquainted before they departed to Lennox Heads for a five-day summer peer support program for young people who have been affected by cancer.

CanTeen Queensland Division Manager Peter McGlennon said participants would be exposed to a variety of activities during the camp and hoped giving them the opportunity to meet Gold Coast United players could assist in helping them realise their dreams.

“These young people are no different to any other teenagers,” Mr McGlennon said.

“Some aspire to be sporting champs and it’s inspiring for them to meet people who are heading down that path and maybe hear that they have been through some tough challenges to get to where they are. This gives them hope to go on and chase their dreams despite the challenges they’ve got now.”

However, after joining in with the various activities and hearing first-hand the hardships many members had endured, Young Socceroo Jake Barker-Daish said he drew some inspiration of his own from the experience.

“It’s been a real eye-opener because they’ve obviously all been suffering in their own ways with cancer, whether it’s themselves who have been diagnosed or someone in their family, so to see them all happy and laughing is a really great experience,” the well-grounded 18-year-old said.

“It makes you realise how lucky and privileged we are. To see what these guys are going through and how happy they are really helps put things into perspective,” he said.

But it didn’t stop there.

Jerrad Tyson, Daniel Bragg, Zac Anderson and Daniel Severino also got their share of life-changing experiences with a visit to the sick children at the Gold Coast Hospital on Monday night as part of the club’s ongoing commitment with Radio Lollipop.

The United trio helped spread some cheer and stopped at nothing to score some smiles on the young patient’s faces.

An adored Radio Lollipop regular, shot-stopper Tyson wooed the ward with his magic card tricks, while Anderson was beaten on the fussball table by a much younger competitor.

However this didn’t seem to concern the girls of the group as Anderson walked away with multiple new admirers who were enthralled by his charm and curly gold locks.

Tuesday saw former Kingscliff High School student James Brown return to his old stomping ground with Dylan McGowan, when the pair attended an end-of-year awards assembly and spoke to the students about how they reached their football goals.