This time the pupils of the non-specialized school No. 3 in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytsky, Kyiv oblast, got lucky. This is no surprise, because young residents of the town love sports and are especially famous for their sports achievements on raion level.
“In September I will be more eager to come to the first lesson,” a pupil of the seventh form Yevhen shared his impressions, “Because I will know that a new sports playground will be waiting for me. Before we have played football in the yard, and that was really uncomfortable.”
Over the 62 years of the school’s history the sports equipment has remained unchanged, because the budget money was not enough, says the principal of the school No. 3 in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytsky Volodymyr Kondus. “We needed this sports field badly as air. Basically, the children haven’t had any place for physical exercise. In warm seasons they were running around the school yard, and the event hall played the role of a gym in winter, which is why we had to take the chairs out of it,” he says.
The social initiative “Call friends – let’s play together!” was launched with the purpose of developing the sports infrastructure for children. So, this is not the first present made by the benefactors for children, the initiative is 10 this year. Over this time in school yards throughout Ukraine over 160 fields have been built for a half of million of children. This year the number of objects will increase by 20 sports areas.
In the new turfgrass field there are several tables for ping-pong, basketball hoops, pull-up bars and ladders for gymnastic exercises, as well as football and basketball balls.
“The Coca-Cola Company is working in more than 200 countries of the world and everywhere we spread the main message: the youth should live actively and go in for sports. We are glad to have an opportunity to realize this project jointly with our partners and give the pupils an opportunity to use the sports ground and equipment that was installed,” Director General of the Coca-Cola Ukraine Company Roger Gauntlett emphasized.
The organizers say: they are not going to stop on what they have achieved and are going to modernize the project. For example, this year they for the first time were receiving the applications electronically, and in a several days’ time they got over 2,000 applications from secondary schools.
However, there are still over 15,000 schools that need corresponding sports equipment in Ukraine. That is why the foundation recommends the educational institutions not to linger and send applications for new fields. All the more so, for this you only need a huge desire to get a new ground, a desire to make sports achievements, and a filled-up application form.
