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MCDONALD'S LPGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLAJune 4, 2008Kathryn ComptonKatherine Hull-KirkBetsy KingHAVRE DE GRACE, MARYLAND DANA GROSS-RHODE: We have an announcement today from Betsy King and Golf Fore Africa. Betsy, I will turn it over to you. BETSY KING: Thank you, Dana. I just want to thank everyone for coming today to listen about Golf Fore Africa and to be here for a check presentation. Before I begin, I want to thank McDonald's LPGA Championship for allowing us to do the press conference here this year, as well as the LPGA. It's been about a year and a half, and actually last year at the HSBC Women's Match Play event, we announced this initiative called Golf Fore Africa. And in the last year, the players have donated their time and money to help us raise $250,000 for a village in Rwanda called Mudasomwa. There are some players here today that actually went with us to Africa last year in October, Katherine Hull and Reilley Rankin and Juli Inkster went, as well, with her children. Juli is not playing this week, as well as Renee Powell and Wendy from the LPGA teaching division. I would like to also recognize Carolyn Bivens and Angela Stamford here representing the board. Today we will be making a check presentation, and before we do that, we want to announce our next two projects. I'm living proof that there is life after the LPGA Tour. And I have to say that this has been almost more exciting than what I did for 28 years. I love the LPGA Tour. I loved competing. But I really feel as though I have an opportunity along with the help of the LPGA players and golf fans everywhere to truly make a difference in the lives of children and women in Africa. And we're actually women helping women. Just to give you a couple statistics: 70 percent of the world's poor are women, and with the HIV/AIDS virus, it is the leading cause of death worldwide for people ages 18 to 40. 50 percent of the people who have HIV/AIDS today are women and 60 percent in Africa are women. Because of that, there are 15 million children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS and 28 million of those orphans live in Sub-Saharan Africa. So you see there's a real need there. Golf Fore Africa exists to raise funds for awareness within the golf community to help these or fans and to help people who have been affected by AIDS. The Mudasomwa project, our first one, was to help children receive food, water, a chance for education, basic healthcare and vocational training, if they were older. Having gone there personally, and seen firsthand the devastation caused by poverty, aids and the 1994 genocide was often overwhelming, but it changed my life and I wanted to have a chance to make a difference. So that is what we've done in the last 16 months, and we will continue to do that. We have two more projects, another project in the Mudasomwa area in Rwanda, we will be partnering with World Vision to build a medical clinic, and we are hopeful that we will receive some funding from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief so that this clinic will provide basic healthcare for a community and treat malaria and provide drugs for people that are affected with AIDS. The other partnership with Lesotho is building homes for communities that have been devastated by HIV/AIDS. There's a 29 percent infection rate in the country, and Lesotho is a small country surrounded by South Africa. So there's a great need for these children that have lost their parents because of HIV/AIDS. At this time, I'd like to call Angela Stamford, who is a representative of the LPGA board, she is a player representative, and Reilley Rankin and Katherine Hull to come up and help us make a presentation to Kathryn Compton from World Vision, a check for $250,000. KATHERINE HULL: On behalf of the LPGA players we are very honored to present this check to World Vision and look forward to partnering with them in the upcoming project. BETSY KING: I want Kathryn Compton to say a few words. KATHRYN COMPTON: On behalf of the children and families with Mudasomwa, Rwanda, I'd like to thank you. And especially to thank the young women that are being mentored by women such as Betsy and trying to make a difference and Juli and trying to make a difference in the lives of children around the world. It was a blessed time to be in Rwanda. It was wonderful to watch the transformation that happened from the highest levels with governmental officials to the community work that was being done, and so we are very excited about the future of what we are going to be doing within Mudasomwa as well as in Lesotho, and look forward to being here with you again and celebrating more with you as you partner with us, so thank you very much. BETSY KING: Before we conclude and open for questions, I just wanted to make sure that you noticed on your press release that we have also had some corporate sponsors that have stepped up. Rolex has made a donation, PING, Golf Digest and the LPGA Tournament Owners Association have all made donations to Golf Fore Africa to help us reach our mission. On the other sheet you have a list of the players that have either made donations or donated their time. I want to particularly note that Lorena Ochoa donated a day last year for us and is donating a day this year; that whatever we can use her to do to raise money for Golf Fore Africa, she has donated her time to do that. We had a clinic in March that these three players participated in, along with Juli Inkster and Pat Hurst that also was a major fund-raiser for us. Several other players, just this morning, have added donations, and that's Beth Daniel, Meg Mallon, Heather Daly-Donofrio and Brittany Lincicome. This week we have solicited donations from the players, and so far we have received $11,600 and I have made the pledge that I will match every donation by players and staff this week. So you can see that the LPGA players are generous, and as is the whole golf community, so that's what we are targeting is the generosity of the LPGA golfers and the golf community to help children in Africa. I don't know if you guys have any questions. Usually it gets quiet in the press room at this time but if there are anyone that has any questions, we are happy to say around afterwards to answer questions individually. It's easier to do this when you don't have to defend a shot out-of-bounds in the last hole to lose or something. Well, thank you very much for coming. I appreciate your time and I hope that you write up a nice story about us. We appreciate any publicity that you could give us. Thank you very much. Have a good week. End of FastScripts |
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