\u201cHi Scottie, Jordie and Beaudie,\u201d he said in the message. \u201cI\u2019m Joshua, we have met before. Well done with the win last night. I loved the passing and kicking. Thank you for helping the UpsideDowns trust and helping me speak. I\u2019m really good at speaking now. <\/p>\n
\u201cCan you help me a little more? We have a gala dinner in September at Eden Park. Could we get a signed All Blacks jersey for our auction? We will get lots of money for it \u2013 because everyone loves you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The message touched a chord and the trio \u2013 who will bring up a combined 300 tests between them in Saturday\u2019s match against South Africa \u2013 donated a signed jersey from the victory over France in Dunedin in early July, where the All Blacks became the first team in rugby history to reach 500 test wins. <\/p>\n
\u201cJoshua loves rugby and wanted to do something different and cheeky,\u201d his father Phil Venables said. \u201cHe has met the Barretts before at a captain\u2019s run and idolises them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venables explained that speech-language therapy has been life-changing for Joshua and the family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key benefit is that he can interact and be part of our community \u2013 and not feel left out,\u201d Venables said. \u201cHe is mainstream at school, he is active in sports (judo, swimming and football) and he is able get on really well with all his cousins.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Barrett brothers will bring up 500 test matches between them on Saturday night. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
The Barrett brothers are patrons of UpsideDowns and it is a cause that is close to their heart, as one of their sisters, Zara, was born with Trisomy-21. Their mother Robyn told the Herald that the family are \u201cpassionate supporters\u201d of the UpsideDowns Education Trust. <\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the day, most schools had a speech language therapist based full-time at school,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is not the case anymore so sadly many children, not just children with Down syndrome, miss out on the support they need to have a confident voice to enable them to shine and reach their potential. The early intervention of speech therapy will set a child up for life. The magnificent work of the UpsideDowns Education Trust removes barriers for so many families who may not otherwise be able to afford or access specialist support.\u201d<\/p>\n
The signed jersey is one of many special auction items available at the annual Share the Dream gala dinner, held at Eden Park from 6.30pm this Saturday. <\/p>\n
These include Ed Sheeran concert tickets, an action-packed Queenstown holiday and a five-night stay in Rarotonga. There\u2019s also plenty for sports fans, from a signed Gael Monfils shirt from the recent US Open (donated by ASB Classic organisers), autographed Warriors and Black Ferns kit, a VIP experience at a Qatar Airways box for the upcoming Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park and a priceless opportunity to attend an Auckland FC training and meet the players and coaches. <\/p>\n
\u201cUpsideDowns Education Trust is a cause we\u2019re proud to support at Auckland FC,\u201d said chief executive Nick Becker. \u201cWe hope everybody has a wonderful evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tickets and more information about the gala dinner, whose principal sponsors are Ray White and Eden park, can be found here<\/a>. <\/p>\n Michael Burgess<\/a> has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America\u2019s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHi Scottie, Jordie and Beaudie,\u201d he said in the message. \u201cI\u2019m Joshua, we have met before. Well done…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,5263,20437,8136,20438,1977,20440,19789,13503,71,6628,20439,424,6096,111,139,69,20442,20441,213,61,4741],"class_list":["post-19013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-all","tag-barrett","tag-blacks","tag-brothers","tag-charity","tag-cheeky","tag-donate","tag-fan","tag-from","tag-historic","tag-jersey","tag-life","tag-message","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pays","tag-sometimes","tag-sports","tag-to","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}