By Ashly July
The Toronto Raptors and the Just Energy foundation have donated $50,000 to help youth in Scarborough Village develop their skills on the court, as well as in reading, writing and math.
A gym full of YouthLink participants at Cedar Avenue Junior Public School, were treated to a surprise visit from the Raptor mascot himself as well as ex-Raptor and Scarborough-native Jamaal Magloire, to announce they are funding a new youth initiative in the neighbourhood.
Magloire, also spoke to the kids about his life and how much it means to be able to help in the community he grew up in.
“Words can’t explain how special this feeling is, to make a 360 degree turn from where I started. I went to the U.S. for many, many years, now coming back and working in my community that I was born and raised in, it’s a feeling that’s second to none,” said the former Eastern Commerce star, and current Raptors Basketball Development Consultant & Community Ambassador.
“Triple-Double Program”
The $50,000 was presented by MLSE Foundation Chair, Aris Kaplanis, and Just Energy Vice President of Marketing, Alan Shulman to YouthLink, as part of the first Toronto Raptors Community Action Grant, to fund their new “Triple-Double” program.
The funding from this grant will go a long way towards staffing, securing a facility to run the program out of, and paying for basketball equipment as well as books and stationery.
Ronni Gorman, Senior Program Manager at YouthLink, says the program is dedicated to helping students become better basketball players, students and people.
“Our program is called triple-double, because it’s [basketball]ball, literacy and numeracy…playing ball is dependent on handing in their literacy assignments and attending tutoring for numeracy every week.”
Access to basketball courts
The program will run from September to May and will be open to 100 youth in Scarborough Village, ages of 14-20, and is a great opportunity for participants and mentors alike. Triple-Double is much-needed in a community that has no access to indoor basketball courts.
Gorman also explains how much this grant means to the young people she works with, “It’s a huge deal for the kids, we don’t have a gym in Scarborough Village, so kids have wanted to play basketball for years and haven’t had the opportunity, so it’s a huge deal to have the funding to be able to have a permit throughout the year and constantly run organized ball because we’ve never had it here before.”
Raptors Clinic
After the cheque presentation the youth were treated to a basketball clinic run by Raptors basketball development coaches.
After being put through their paces, participant Jonathan Delgado, 18, said he was inspired and happy for his community.
“It’s a blessing, in our community there’s not a lot of resources…now this is something I want to do when I get older, you know give back, and show that with hard work anything is possible with self-belief, I just really enjoyed the event today,” said Delgado.
Magloire shared his hope that overcoming challenges, such as not having access to resources, or even a gym to play basketball to play in, will help push these Scarborough kids to success the way it did for him.
“The thing is to persevere to break through walls, prove all the naysayers wrong and make your family proud. I used my family as motivation. I know everybody has a story and it’s up to them to use it as motivation and run with it.”