Monday, November 17, 2008

Haldimand Huskies School Donations

Earlier this year, it came to the attention of the Haldimand Huskies Basketball League, the dire need our area schools faced with regards to their physical education programs. Through tours of various school equipment rooms, the appalling state of the sports equipment these schools are forced to use is truly shocking. This realization brought about our new “Continual Community Presence Program”.

“While donating our old basketballs to some Caledonia schools last year, we became aware of this problem”, states league president, Eugene Tjekema. “We had no idea that our area schools were being forced to educate our children with equipment that was in such rough shape. During our tours, we viewed such substandard equipment that our leadership team decided that, as our leagues are comprised of children from all of these schools collectively, we try and remedy this problem in any way we could. Contacting the five Caledonia schools this past June, we requested a wish list of sports equipment the schools desperately needed. The response was overwhelming. The leadership team then sat back down to decide what to donate to each school. As each school had different needs, sports equipment was not restricted to that of basketball orientation”.

 Recently, league president, Eugene Tjekema and vice president, Vicki Holdsworth, visited each school and with the help of members of the league representing each school, presented school principals with some of the requested sports items. River Heights received desperately needed basketball rims, Centennial, volleyball net and balls, Oneida, soccer balls and basketballs, Notre Dame, folding hockey nets, and St. Patrick’s, an outdoor steel backboard and rim. As the Huskies membership has grown this year, encompassing both, Cayuga and Hagersville, these area schools will be added to our program next year.

“ This initiative is something the Haldimand Huskies plan to carry on every year as long as we are able”, claims vice president, Vicki Holdsworth, “ We are hoping that other organizations in Haldimand recognize the tremendous needs our schools are facing and that these are our children that will benefit from our help. By diverting a few dollars from each registration fee into a community fund, the potentially for aiding our schools and children is limitless.”