Basketball Star Donates $1.3M Towards Hospital Construction
A Congolese basketball player is giving back to his country by donating his hefty salary towards the construction of a hospital in honour of his late father.
Bismack Biyombo, who was born and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been playing for the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association, when his father Francis took ill last June.
He went on hiatus to take care of his father, who passed away from a coronavirus-related illness in Turkey two months later.
Now, returning as a player for the Phoenix Suns for the 2021/22 season, Biyombo revealed that he has pledged his $1.3 million salary towards constructing the hospital in his hometown of Lubumbashi.
“I wanted to make this year about my dad, because my dad spent most of his life making his life about me, my brothers, my sisters, and servicing people,” the 29-year-old star explained in a recent YouTube video.
By providing for his fellow Congolese through this heartwarming gesture, Biyombo desires “to give hope to the hopeless at home and those individuals that cannot take their family members out.”
“I want to be able to give them better conditions so that they can somewhat have hope that their loved ones will be able to live and see another day. I wanted to give them something that would continue to service people under [my father’s] name.”
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