Tim Tebow Showcases Success of His International Charity on 28th Birthday
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Tim Tebow turned 28 on Friday and celebrated the occasion by sharing an exclusive video highlighting the five years his foundation has been helping people in need.
"Many blessings in my 28 yrs. Being part of 5 yrs of @tebowfoundation is one of the best!" Tebow tweeted.
The video, narrated by ESPN journalist Tom Rinaldi, captures just a few of the Tim Tebow Foundation's many accomplishments — with the support of donors — since its founding.
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In the eight minute video compilation, Rinaldi tells the story of an impoverished 9-year-old Filipino girl who suffered from a debilitating bone condition that required medical treatment her family could not afford back in 2010. That same year, Tebow was gearing up to find God's purpose for his life by returning to the Philippines where he lived as a child with his missionary parents.
"Goodness by itself is but a theory, it is in giving that that goodness becomes real. And it's in that reality that we find God's deepest beauty and our truest purpose," Rinaldi says about Tebow and hundreds of people in four countries who've already been helped by the athlete's foundation.
"While sport was a passion it was not his true purpose. He wanted to do God's work and share God's goodness by giving to those that needed it most," Rinaldi adds. "It was a lesson he learned from his family and his faith from the moment he was born in the Philippines. Even after moving to Florida as a child, he returned there as a teenager to spread God's word and do the Lord's work by serving the needy."
As a college student at the University of Florida, Tebow made giving back through charity a priority until he could form his own foundation in 2010.
In an emotional speech captured in the video below, Tebow reveals how he and those involved in the foundation held firm to the mission's priority of serving all poeople, not just some, despite naysayers who said it would be an impossible task.
"We created our mission statement to say that we want to create hope, faith and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need," Tebow said.
"First, a lot of people wanted to say, 'that's way too broad of a mission statement, you can't do that, you'll never be successful because you have to narrow it down. You have to either help kids with this disease or kids with that disease or orphans or widows.' And we said, 'why? We just want to help people.'"
Since 2010, Tebow's foundation has established a number of initiatives such as the W15H program that gives children with life-threatening diseases the opportunity to make their dreams come true; provides goods and medical services to underprivileged children in the Philippines, where they also built the Tim Tebow CURE Hospital, and has also organized an annual prom for special needs children in the United States.
The Tebow CURE Hospital in Davao City, Philippines, opened its doors last December, and recently celebrated performing 100 orthopedic surgeries on children in need.
"I hope that when I'm 90 years old, I've accomplished a legacy that isn't all about me. I hope it's a legacy about the people who our foundation helps," Tebow told People magazine in November. "We're about to open a hospital in the Philippines. We'll have this hospital where we can help kids who are hurting; healing them physically, but encouraging them emotionally and spiritually as well."
