The Under-21 netballers, yesterday, received a surprise $1 million donation from the Sports Development Foundation (SDF), towards their expenses for the World Youth Netball Championships (WYNC), which will be in the Cook Islands from August 11-18.

Minister of Sports Olivia Grange, along with SDF chairman David Mais, handed over the cheque to Marva Bernard, president of the Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) at a function yesterday to relaunch the Sunshine Girls website at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel. The amount brings the SDF contribution to the young Sunshine Girls to $2 million.

Grange told The Gleaner after the handover that the government was delighted to assist the JNA.

"We have committed $2 million in support of their programmes to go to the Cook Islands for the tournament and any other support that is possible on our part, we will give them to realise their goal," said Grange.

grateful

"Their outfits were manufactured locally and this signals the fact that sports is also helping manufacturers and so the more we excel and the more competitions we participate in will help the industry," Grange added.

Bernard said that her association was very grateful for all the sponsorship that they have received so far.

"For the minister to increase her sponsorship by $1 million was awesome because it is more than we were expecting," said Bernard. "We didn't come here expecting to get another million from them because the first million has been used to pay for the tickets," she said.

"This is really big and we are glad that we were able to pull it off because we have to give these girls a chance and I must thank all the persons who have contributed to the team whether it is cash or kind," said Bernard.

The JNA also received $1.3 million from the Jamaica Public Service (JPS), which will go towards Jamaica's hosting of the Sunshine Series in October, which includes Australia and New Zealand. It also help cover defender Yanique Gordon's expenses for the WYNC and also cover next year's tuition fee for goal shooter Christina Solmon, who is studying at the University of Technology.