by Jorge

Working at the DI encompasses a long list of difficult challenges in a variety of different ways. A challenge that can be best described as comfortable for me is trying to accommodate our basketball program participants with the appropriate footwear for our sport. Usually the face of a person casually informing me he couldn’t come to the program because he has no basketball shoes is delightful. Especially because all I think of when this discussion takes place is how great is it to have a new face join us in sport. So I answer back, I’ll take a look and get back to you. Something should come in, the donations usually do.

Some time passed and I began to experience some difficulty in coming up with the right size shoes so I went to talk to our Directors about using some of our resources to go out and buy some shoes for our motivated players. They thoughtfully agreed and provided the means. The very next day two pairs of Nike basketball shoes had come in on our loading dock and they were the right fit. And so we were left to only buy one pair.

That afternoon after working at our apartment building that provides subsidized rental units for our clients, myself and a group of volunteers, including the last basketball player needing shoes, went shopping for sneakers at Walmart. There was one pair of basketball shoes that fit perfect. We scooped them up and took them to the cashier. Expecting to pay $40, the cashier swipes the upc tag and the register lights up $3. After a brief discussion with the store manager it was policy that they charge us the price scanned at the cash register. And to our surprise, the cost of the sneakers totaled 3 dollars and 15 cents tax. The first words and thoughts that came to mind were “What good karma.” Good things happen with good intentions and this basketball program is a perfect example of this.

The Wednesday night basketball program continues to grow and both interest and feedback have been very rewarding and inspiring. I encourage more staff at our centre to consider running other similar sport programs. Who knows what else could be in store for others with good intentions? They could even cost us less than $3.

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one comment

1. pam : February 3rd, 2010 at 5:24 pm
   

   hello yes do you have any sneakers i really need a pair size 10 please owmens hope all is well jorge take great care thanks for everything pam harper / cow cirl chances girlfriend you are doing a wonderful job keep it up thanks for everthing pam harper

   

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