A group of 17 youths are one session into a nine-week basketball camp, hosted free-of-charge by Greater Sudbury Police Service and the Sudbury Basketball Facility.
Youths joined police officers and professional basketball player and Sudbury Basketball Facility owner Georges Serresse for the first weekly session on Tuesday.
“For a lot of kids, it’s difficult to afford these kinds of programs, so this is a perfect opportunity,” Serresse said of the program, which is offered to youths from Grade 6 to 8.
“For the most part, a lot of it is teaching basketball fundamentals in a fun environment, so drills and games where they’re able to learn, and at the end of each session we’ll take time to do scrimmages,” he said, adding that it’s ultimately all about having fun.
“I’m sure the kids will enjoy it, and the cops who are helping out will enjoy it as well.”
The Sudbury Basketball Facility was founded by Serresse, a former Sudbury Five player, a few years ago to help get youths involved in basketball. It operates out of the old school building at 52 Gill St., where the camps are taking place.
Among the police officers to help out on Tuesday was Supt. Marc Brunette, who has played on the Greater Sudbury Police Service basketball team in the past.
He also investigated the 2006 murder of 37-year-old Nicholas Martin, for which a 10-year homicide conviction was laid in late 2010.
The connection?
After criminal proceedings concluded, Martin’s family donated money in his honour to city police toward youth programming, earmarked toward youth basketball.
They hosted a youth league for a few years at Queen Elizabeth School, Brunette said, with leftover funds sitting in the police board coffers when the program came to a close.
This summer, the board voted to pledge approximately $3,000 dollars which remained toward the basketball camp currently underway. Youths were selected by youth safety co-ordinators from throughout the four local school boards.
In addition to the camps being a fun way for kids to spend Tuesday afternoons, Brunette said the hope is that it instills a sense of teamwork and leadership among the youths alongside a passion for sports.
It’s also nice to see them get along with police officers, he said.
“It really builds on that police/youth relationship when it comes to building trust and bringing a humanistic approach to policing while supporting youths,” he said, describing the program as a means of establishing those relationships early on.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.