Rebuy Stars with volleyball players from Kladno contributed to soldiers on missions

On Saturday, October 26th, thanks to Rebuy Stars, the story of camouflage jerseys was concluded when, at the beginning of the extra-league match between Volejbal Kladno and Dukla Liberec, two vouchers with a total of CZK 30,000 were handed over to the chairwoman of the Military Solidarity Fund, Brigadier General Lenka Smerdova, and the deputy chief chaplain of the Czech Republic's Army, Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Hudousek of the Joint Operational Center of the Ministry of Defence of Czech Republic.

It all began in the spring of this year, when the voleyball Eagles, were scheduled to play in a Dukla Liberec match with the army volleyball team. The packman Tomáš Hýský designed the design of a set of volleyball jerseys in camouflage. He wanted to express symbolic team support for Czech soldiers who serve in foreign operations. Volleyball head coach Milan Fortuník also invited war veterans to the auditorium. The Eagles lost the match to Dukla, but their gesture of support was noticed by soldiers at Resolute Support's foreign operations headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. There, too, the uniforms eventually traveled for the soldiers, who then represented the Czech Army in them at sporting events.

In September, the soldiers and volleyball players met in person at Vítkov, their homecoming ceremony. The soldiers returned the jerseys to the athletes, and the reunion was cordial enough that the volleyball players decided to auction the jerseys and donate them to charity.

A total of 30,000 kroner for the limited edition jerseys was donated by the volleyball team's main partner, the Rebuy Stars Group, and the athletes have finally decided to donate the money with one half to the Military Solidarity Fund, which helps soldiers and their families when they find themselves in a difficult living situation. “Public support is very important to us. In a way, both we and the athletes fight in our own fields. That is why we are doubly pleased with this personal initiative," commented General Smerdova, who took a check from Michal Krcmar, marketing director of Rebuy Stars. "It's not about tonight at all, it's about the act of helping those who have no other options at first. We have great respect for men and women who lay down their lives for our country on foreign missions, and if such a trifle can help bereaved wives and families, we will be happy to repeat it. Once, twice, a hundred times . . ." adds Michal Krcmar.

The other half of the money raised was donated by the volleyball team to help a defense official who was suffering from a natural disaster. Lieutenant Colonel Hudousek, the military chaplain, took the check. For the soldiers present, the Eagles' match was an opportunity to meet again. "We haven't seen each other since the parade. We could at least talk and tell each other how we're doing when we get home," said one veteran of the foreign mission to Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Martin Kuna. The other bonus of the evening was, finally, a 3-1 win by the Kladno Eagles over the Dukla Liberec. "You bring us luck," commented the leader Hýský on the win, saying that the soldiers had to come to other matches.