Dwight Howard, the star center of the National Basketball Association’s Orlando Magic, will visit Taiwan on Tuesday to play basketball with 15 children from disadvantaged families, a Christian relief organization said yesterday.
The Magic’s All-Star center, who won his second straight NBA defensive player of the year award in April, will meet 15 children sponsored by World Vision Taiwan when he arrives in Taiwan, said Kuo Hsiu-ling (郭秀齡), an executive with the Christian relief organization.
The children are either from economically disadvantaged families or families facing emergency situations, she added.
The children are all fans of the NBA superstar, Kuo said.
One of them, nicknamed Chia Chia (佳佳), a fourth-grader who has had asthma since early childhood and later suffered from delayed development and poor vision, is looking forward to playing basketball with Howard.
Chia Chia’s poor physical condition has put a heavy financial burden on her parents because they have to pay thousands of New Taiwan dollars in medical bills a month, Kuo said.
With the help of World Vision Taiwan, however, Chia Chia’s family has been able to cope, she said.
Kuo called on members of the public to pitch in and help other children in need.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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