Ricky’s three friends took part in the Luca Project with a visit to the children’s floors of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital.
Basketball player Pierre Oriola (Barça Lassa) and former players Jordi Trias and Víctor Sada took part in The Ricky Rubio Foundation’s Luca Project event at the Vall d’Hebron Children’s Hospital. The three ballers are personal friends of the current Phoenix Suns NBA player who shared a wardrobe when playing for FC Barcelona or the Spain National Basketball Team. The three friends gave smiles and gifts to the younger children of the different clinical areas.
It has been an emotional and intense visit that has developed in parallel to the daily care activity of the center, but with a change in the children’s routine that always provides an improvement in their mood.
The Luca Project, developed by The Ricky Foundation in collaboration with the Vall d’Hebron Hospital, encourages three patients from the center to travel to an NBA game throughout this season. So did Luca last year, a child to whom Ricky Rubio was offering his support and friendship during his treatment of a very aggressive cancer at just 13 years of age.
Ricky Rubio’s experience was so positive that he wanted to institutionalize this support through his foundation by the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and the Department of Health of the Generalitat.
For this second edition of the Luca Project, three oncology patients, Erik, Ona, and Kyle, will experience the NBA live with Ricky Rubio in a Phoenix Suns game. Kyle, one of the chosen, shared a few minutes with Ricky’s friends, Trias, Sada, and Pierre, wishing him that his condition will allow him to make the trip soon and conveying on his behalf and on Ricky’s behalf the desire to see that dream fulfilled.
At the end of the visit, at the auditorium of the Children’s Hospital, the players, the doctors’ team and healthcare personnel who helped organize the visit, along with the patients able to travel, watched the documentary ‘Stronger Together’, a story about Luca and Ricky Rubio. They all welcomed the film with applause for its emotional impact. Luca himself sent a message of encouragement and Ricky, in the video, thanked his friends and wished the whole Hospital Merry Christmas.
Pierre Oriola, Jordi Trias and Víctor Sada admitted having spent a morning in the best company, happy to have been able to provide such an encouragement to children.
Esteve Rubio, Ricky’s father and President of The Ricky Rubio Foundation, also prized these moments for the little ones in the hospital and their families. He thanked the basketball players: “The three friends, Sada, Trias, and Ricky when they met in FC Barcelona formed a trio that still makes much talk. Today they are still friends and I have to thank them for their collaboration in such an important activity.
Dr. Rocío Cebrián, Assistant Director of Surgical Care and Critics of Vall d’Hebron, and Maria Ángeles Aceituno, Assistant to the Directorate of Nursing, have welcomed the athletes. Pierre Oriola, Jordi Trias and Víctor Sada who have visited the patients of Nephrology, Cardiac Surgery, and Paediatric Surgery, and those of the Oncological Day Hospital and the Multipurpose Day Hospital.
