 The sports area will give the 15 pupils at Richmond House, all of whom suffer from challenging educational behaviour, the opportunity to develop their sporting skills. The England and Wasps player is the Honorary President of the Middlesex branch of rugby charity, Wooden Spoon, which helped fund the project.
As he opened the project he commented, “Wooden Spoon helps many good causes including this one. I am delighted to be opening these facilities at Richmond House. Sport has given me a huge number of opportunities and a great deal of pleasure and I hope it does the same for the children here.”
 The pupils of Richmond House, part of Hampton Community Centre, thoroughly enjoyed meeting Lawrence and insisted he played football with them and test out the new sports court.
Richmond Council’s Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and Education, Malcolm Eady, commented: “These new facilities are superb and follow on from two successful phases of internal refurbishments at Richmond House. My thanks go to Wooden Spoon for their generosity.”
Gordon Brown, Regional Chairman for the Wooden Spoon in Middlesex added “Wooden Spoon’s Middlesex Region is incredibly active - our volunteers have raised over £100,000 in 2007 alone! It is a source of great pride to all involved, particularly as the money we raise is spent locally. In this instance we were particularly pleased to make sport more accessible for these children – it will allow them to develop skills and talents that may previously have gone unnoticed. We wish all the children at Richmond House the best for the future and to see the look on their faces when they met Lawrence even for football fans makes these days so worthwhile.” Anyone interested in joining the Middlesex Region should visit www.woodenspoon.com or call Gordon Brown on 01923 810 201.
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