“When you truly love life and people you start a ripple effect that changes the life of another – who in turn changes the life of another – until one person and one ripple at a time, the world is changed” Bobby Dorka.
When we first decided to set up the BDFT in 2014,the goal was to keep Bobby’s wish of helping as many people as possible alive whilst also helping him achieve a dream of his – becoming famous by 25. Through using Bobby’s name and virtuousness, the foundation was created with an aim to raise £25k by Bobby’s 25th birthday.
Three years later, we are beyond overwhelmed by the response the BDFT has had and are delighted to be able to announce today, on Bobby’s 25th birthday, we have reached our £25k target! We cannot thank you all enough for your support and generosity as this would not have been possible without you.
Now that this money has been raised, it is time to put Bobby’s wish into action and start helping people. After thinking long and hard about which causes and charities would benefit most from a donation, we have realised that making the impact we would have liked to have made isn’t going to be that easy. It is also extremely difficult to choose one cause over another as every cause is worthwhile.
Some of what has been raised is going to be donated to charities that are close to Bobby and his friends and family – we will let you know which charities once finalised.
However, with the rest of the money and anything raised in the future, we are hoping to help individuals by giving them a similar opportunity to one that Bobby had that ultimately helped shape him into the incredible person he was.
Many of you who knew Bobby knew him from or were aware of his involvement in martial arts. We strongly believe that the way martial arts positively impacted Bobby’s and many of your lives is something that should be shared. This is why we would like to give the opportunity to individuals that may not necessarily ever have it.
The BDFT is therefore proposing to create a programme for young people in unfortunate circumstances, offering them a chance to learn martial arts as well as essential personal development skills, as those of you who are involved in martial arts know, go hand in hand.
Martial arts played a massive role in Bobby’s confidence, integrity, and perseverance and I’m sure many of you are examples of how else it shapes individuals which is why we believe that a programme like this can help these young people change their lives for the better, despite circumstances they may currently be in.
We will let you know the details of the programme once it has been finalised.
By doing this, we are hoping to create a ripple effect like the one mentioned at the beginning of this post. By dropping the first stone into the water and helping just one person change their life for the better, we can only imagine the number of people they will go on to help and then those individuals will help others and so on.
We’re excited to begin changing the world one ripple at a time and hope that you will continue to do so with us.
Bobby Dorka Foundation Trust 