'An entirely different world': Stampeders receiver Reggie Begelton learned a lot from visit to the Philippines

When Calgary Stampeders receiver Reggie Begelton is on the football field, his vision is to get into the endzone, but after this off-season, he has a whole new meaning of vision.

Begelton, Tim White of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Nic Demski of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Marc-Antione Duquoy of the Montreal Alouettes all travelled to the Philippines as ambassadors for World Vision Canada.

“The CFL has chosen one person from each individual team,” Begelton explained.

“I got the luxury to be chosen for the Calgary Stampeders and it was awesome. When I got the opportunity my eyes lit up. This is something I've wanted to do.”

What Begelton saw opened his eyes to the poverty some face in the Philippines. It’s a completely different world there and Begelton says he learned so much.

“We as privileged individuals who live in the great country of Canada and the United States as myself, we get sort of lost in our own reality. The fact you are a product of your environment and you don’t realize that there is an entirely different world out there.”

Putting things into perspective

Begelton says he gained a whole new group of brothers through the other CFLers during their visit to the Philippines. He says they’ll be friends for life.

He says they read to children in schools, played games and even taught them how to play football.

Begelton says it was a real eye-opener when he went to one family’s home. It put a lot of things into perspective for him.

“You walk in and the floors are rock floors," Begelton said.

"And they have six people living in that house. They’ve been living in that house for 36 years, it’s been passed down from the parents. When you see that, these people have so little, but they have everything.”

“It puts perspective and it makes me want to express gratitude that much more every time I wake up.”

We could all learn

Begelton says it was amazing that people who had so little always had smiles on their faces.

He says it’s a lesson we could all learn and to realize that we have so few reasons to complain.

“It’s one of those things that I look at hardships and that I look at things that I can complain about a little bit less. It makes me more grateful of what I have and what I get to do. I can complain but I’d rather not," he said.

“These people wake up and sometimes don't know what they’re going to eat you know. We probably experience that one or two times in our life. Just think about a whole lifetime of that.”

Begelton says the donations towards World Vision not only go to school supplies for the children, they also go to helping families get jobs so they can have income to put food on the table.

Begelton plans on using his RB (Reggie Begelton) brand to help as much as he can.

“I never wanted my brand to go out and just for me to make money. It’s one of those things that I now have an avenue that I want my brand to push towards. Like I always said, a little is a lot and this is something I personally want to go towards,” he said.

Another group of CFLers is in Kenya right now.