Eagles fans get behind cause
Past players inspired Eagles fans to donate more than 8,000 meals for WA's homeless at Sunday's "Cans for a Cause" match
After welcoming back the influential Naitanui and debuting former Magpie Sharrod Wellingham, the side regained its hopes of playing in to September by demolishing the Western Bulldogs by 70 points.
But the club recorded a huge success off the field as well, collecting 8,700 meals for WA’s homeless through the Cans For A Cause campaign, pioneered by West Coast legend Don Pyke.
The dual-premiership player founded the charity initiative, which encouraged West Coast fans to bring a can of food to the game to be donated to Foodbank WA, the state’s largest hunger relief organisation.
In return for the generosity, Eagles supporters were good hard dose of nostalgia with Pyke recruiting fellow teammates Dean Kemp, Peter Matera, Phil Matera, David Wirrpanda, Drew Banfield, Michael Braun, Michael Brennan, Adrian Barich, Rowan Jones, Brett Jones, Mitchell White, Wally Matera, David Hart and Craig Turley to attend the match day and accept donations.
“We collected a total of 6,530 kilos of canned food on Sunday,” Pyke says.
“That is equivalent to 8,700 meals. This was undoubtedly Foodbank’s biggest one-day food collection ever.
“They’ll now donate it to more than 1,200 charities and 420 schools, and also distribute it to adults and children in need.”
The West Coast Eagles would like to thank all members and fans who donated canned goods on Sunday and helped make Cans For A Cause a huge success.