Blind Sports Foundation
The Blind Sports Foundation is a proud, SA-registered charity dedicated to raising money to help blind and vison impaired men, women and children participate in sports and recreation activities in SA.
The Blind Sports Foundation has been raising money for the SA blind and vision impaired community since 1996.
The Blind Sports Foundation is a proud, SA-registered charity dedicated to raising money to help blind and vison impaired men, women and children participate in sports and recreation activities in SA.
The fundraising effort started following the 1996 Multi Disability Championships held in Sydney.
In that year, due to lack of funds, South Australia was not able to supply their two totally blind runners with guide runners, essential for them to compete. The Sydney competition organisers told the competitors that guide runners would be supplied.
Jason Smith
The 1996 competition was totally blind Paralympic hopeful Jason Smith’s last chance to qualify for the Atlanta Games. As a result of his regular guide runner’s absence, he failed to qualify by a mere one-hundredth of a second.
During this event, another totally blind runner was injured when his inexperienced guide ran him off the track.
Soon after these games, a group of athletes decided something had to be done about this situation.
As a result, a new not-for profit fundraising body was born to provide funding, so blind or vision impaired sports people could more easily participate in sport or recreation activities.
Now known as the Blind Sports Foundation, the charity fundraiser has partnered with fantastic SA businesses, community groups and individual donors over the years to support blind and vision impaired people of all ages to expand their sporting and recreation options.
The Blind Sports Foundation provides grants to individuals and teams taking part in a wide variety of sports such as athletics, cricket, goalball, golf, swimming, indoor bowls, judo, powerlifting, lawn bowls, sailing, swish, tandem cycling and tenpin bowling across SA.
The Foundation runs on minimal overheads and our board members are all volunteers, which means that 90 cents in the dollar raised goes to blind and vision impaired sports people in South Australia.
Your Support Means A Lot.
The Blind Sports Foundation is not in any way Government funded.
Therefore, in order for the Foundation to be able to grant funds to the blind and vision impaired sporting community, fundraising is essential to the ongoing operation of the organisation.