Leon Brown donated £500 to St Joseph’s RC High School as a token of gratitude to the school for all of their help throughout the early stages of his rugby career.
Brown, alongside Dragons Head Coach Bernard Jackman, attended the school assembly to present a cheque to St Joseph’s RC High School’s Head Teacher Trevor Brown and Head of PE Steffan Sankala.
When the 21-year-old, who recently signed a new contract with the Dragons, was offered the opportunity to donate money to a local school or team of his choice, he made his choice easily.
“I am a proud St Joey’s boy and the work the Mr Sankala is doing here with the PE department was something that I wanted to support,” said Brown, “so the decision to give the money to my old high school was made pretty quickly on my part.”
Head Coach, Bernard Jackman has vowed to bring the Dragons Region together as a whole and he believes that donating money to recognise the work of schools and clubs that made a difference to a player’s development is a valuable initiative.
"Thankfully David Buttress, the new board and I have a shared vision. We want to unite the Region behind the Dragons. We need to be a resource for the rugby clubs and schools in our Region and not just look to take from them.
“We are very fortunate to have lots of talented local lads, that have committed themselves to the Dragons for the next season and beyond. To be able give something back, as a way of showing our support for our local teams and schools that played a huge role in their development seemed like a really good idea.
“Leon is just the first of many home-grown players who will show their appreciation to the team or club that helped them along the way and I know that the school are going to put the money to good use after visiting yesterday.”
This is the first donation made by the Dragons as they continue to link the Region together, with many more to come following a number of recent high profile contract extensions of senior players who have been made in Gwent.
St Joseph’s RC High School Head of PE, Mr Sankala added; “This is such a great initiative and we are proud that Leon was a pupil at this school and chose us for his donation.
“We have his Wales jersey hanging proudly in the school alongside his Wales U20’s jersey and a Dragons jersey kindly donated to us by Lewis Evans, another former pupil.”
He continued; “Yesterday was a wonderful opportunity for some of our pupils to meet Leon and Bernard Jackman who were both able to give us an insight into the Dragons future plans.
“We can’t wait to have him back to show him what we have done with the money.”
