Source: Liverpool_Echo
Everton FC star Yakubu happy to help local children
Yakubu and his family visit Claire House[LNB]GATHERED together by the entrance, the three young friends speculated on how the superstar footballer would arrive.[LNB]'Do you think he'll come by helicopter because of the snow?' asked one of them excitedly.[LNB]'No, he'll probably come in a Ferrari with his own driver,' said his pal.[LNB]'I can't wait to tell him we play for Everton,' said the third, clutching a football.[LNB]We were at Claire House hospice in Wirral and the boys were residents, all suffering from conditions which means they are permanently in wheelchairs.[LNB]They play wheelchair football under a scheme run by Everton, and were waiting for a visit from Blues striker Ayegbeni Yakubu.[LNB]Unprompted by anyone at his club, Yakubu had telephoned hospice staff to arrange a visit and enquire how he could go about making a donation.[LNB]When he arrived, in a black 4x4 as it happened, the boys stopped racing each other in the snow and came inside to meet him.[LNB]Yakubu had brought along his new wife Yvonne and their 10-month-old daughter Kayla to see the hospice, which opened its doors to children in December 1998.[LNB]The 3.5 acre hospice complex is home to young people with life threatening or life limiting conditions and their families from Merseyside, Cheshire, North Wales and the Isle of Man.[LNB]Among the rooms he was given a tour of is the multi-sensory room, an interactive, stimulating environment where children can relax on a heated water bed and the hydro pool and Jacuzzi room.[LNB]Lastly he is taken to the Butterfly suite, a room brightly lit by the winter sun which overlooks a private garden at the hospice's rear.[LNB]This is where young residents are taken after they have died.[LNB]It's where the Claire House care continues until the time for their funeral.[LNB]Families are free to come and go as they wish and bring photographs, posters, toys and bed linen into the room. It is where they say goodbye, in less traumatic settings than a hospital ward.[LNB]'This is a really happy place,' says Yakubu, back in reception after signing autographs for the young footballers.[LNB]'When you think about it before you come, you imagine people crying and a sad atmosphere but it's a happy place and the kids are smiling. Seeing that makes me smile.'
