Bali trip a mission of charity for footballers

Most footballers heading to Bali during the off-season can look forward to unwinding and taking a well-deserved break, but for two Peel Thunder players their trip to Bali next month will mean plenty of hard work.

Matt Brown and Brennan Gillam are travelling to an isolated area in eastern Bali to help build a community centre for the people of Seraya.

They will work in a team with 60 other volunteers on the task, which has been organised by A Mitch Gillam Project — an initiative named after Peel footballer Mitch Gillam who was killed in a scooter accident in Bali in 2010.

The centre will be used as a first-aid post, a training facility and emergency housing.

A Mitch Gillam Project founder Sue Gilliam, Mitch’s mother, said she was proud of the boys and the other volunteers for taking the time and effort to do something selfless.

“We’re quite overwhelmed by the number of Mitch’s friends who are coming over — a lot of them are tradies because Mitch was an electrician — so it’s all young guys from all over WA who don’t even know each other who are connected to the place through Mitch,” she said.

“They see it as sort of a memorial to him I suppose, we’ve even got two guys from Kalgoorlie who are flying over for just one day just so they can be part of it and lay a brick on Mitch’s community centre.

“We’re just thrilled, we just can’t believe all these gorgeous boys are coming over to help us and help the people of Seraya.”