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GBA Uniforms Go To Youth Near And Far!
2021-05-26
With the recent rebranding of Goulbourn Basketball Association came the challenge of finding homes for numerous basketball uniforms.
Goulbourn Basketball Association became West Ottawa Basketball Association when it was brought to light that the township’s namesake Henry Goulburn had been a slave owner. Knowing that Henry Goulburn, (namesake of Goulbourn Township and thus the GBA), was a former slave owner, we thought it important to disassociate our membership from that legacy and to rebrand in order to maintain values that are consistent with those reflected in our community and our organization. Values of inclusiveness, equity, and diversity are those that make our community so great and those to which our organization is proud to represent.
With this change, is a change in logo and therefore any previous Goulbourn Basketball Association uniforms would no longer be worn. The Executive team set out to find homes for them as going into a landfill was not an option!
Lucky for us, one of our Executive members had gone to Barbados for a year. Kevin Hemeon and his family had become very active in the basketball community with the YMCA in St. Michaels Parish, Barbados. Basketball equipment was not easy to find there so Kevin reached out to West Ottawa about perhaps donating some pinnies to the organization.
After some organization, a 4-foot tall barrel was shipped to the YMCA in St. Michaels Parish with enough uniforms and other clothing to outfit a number of players, coaches and others there!
You can read Kevin’s blog post here!
Even with this substantial donation…there was still more to donate. The next call was to the Ottawa Boys and Girls Club who gladly accepted 15 green bags of jerseys to give to youth in the community. Thank you, Richard Vallee, for helping to coordinate this with us!
But, there was still more! We reached out to one of our West Ottawa coaches, Tarcisse Ruhamyandekwe and he organized a donation to the Face Project, an organization that supports and educates youth in Malawi, Africa. Thank you Tarcisse!
The West Ottawa Basketball Association is thrilled that we were able to make donations to these organizations.
With this change, is a change in logo and therefore any previous Goulbourn Basketball Association uniforms would no longer be worn. The Executive team set out to find homes for them as going into a landfill was not an option!
Lucky for us, one of our Executive members had gone to Barbados for a year. Kevin Hemeon and his family had become very active in the basketball community with the YMCA in St. Michaels Parish, Barbados. Basketball equipment was not easy to find there so Kevin reached out to West Ottawa about perhaps donating some pinnies to the organization.
After some organization, a 4-foot tall barrel was shipped to the YMCA in St. Michaels Parish with enough uniforms and other clothing to outfit a number of players, coaches and others there!
You can read Kevin’s blog post here!
Even with this substantial donation…there was still more to donate. The next call was to the Ottawa Boys and Girls Club who gladly accepted 15 green bags of jerseys to give to youth in the community. Thank you, Richard Vallee, for helping to coordinate this with us!
But, there was still more! We reached out to one of our West Ottawa coaches, Tarcisse Ruhamyandekwe and he organized a donation to the Face Project, an organization that supports and educates youth in Malawi, Africa. Thank you Tarcisse!
The West Ottawa Basketball Association is thrilled that we were able to make donations to these organizations.