After I was given the responsibility of being the head coach of this team, I started to think about what I really wanted to teach the boys this season. I struggled with many different ideas, philosophies about hockey and what it means to be a hockey player. While thinking about this, I watched in awe for over a month, how the hockey community rallied around the families of the Humbolt Broncos bus tragedy victims. It became clear to me that the best thing I can teach the boys about hockey is what it means to be part of the hockey player community and about being a great teammate. As part of the Humbolt news coverage, I came across a picture of an African boy wearing an Oakville Rangers jersey holding a sign in support of the Humbolt Broncos. The picture gained so much popularity that the CBC did a story on the child in the picture.
As I watched the story unfold I found out the executive director of the charity involved with this boy in the picture was a person I grew up with here in Hespeler. Glenn Pascoe lives approx. 1.5km from the Hespeler Arena. I reached out to Glenn and found out about his charity and the “18th man” Project.
http://youtu.be/VpFNsh7LDwg
One4Another is a Canadian Charity facilitating essential surgeries for children in Uganda. In 2012, when Glen and his sister Wendy started this charity, they were able to help provide 34 children with life altering operations in their first year. In 2017, 287 children had surgeries thanks to their work. A couple years ago he started the “18th man project” and now he has 24 teams in total from around the province that participate in this each year, primarily teams in the Oakville Minor Hockey system. These teams are matched up with a child with a need for surgery that has absolutely no other options and they raise the money to provide the surgery. Often times, these children are outcasts in their own families as the parents are simply not able to care for them.
There are no teams from Hespeler, his hometown, involved so far. I intend to change that this year.
This year, the Minor Bantam A Shamrocks will have an 18th member. This boy will be an honorary member of our team and we will watch out for him as we would any other teammate. This teammate however lives 11,695 kms away in a remote village in Uganda. Shortly, we will get more information regarding his name and condition and how we are going to have his back.
Over the summer, each player will be responsible to raise, at minimum, $70. Cutting grass, daily chores, good deeds rewarded, individual bottle collections are all ways this can be accomplished. We will give this money so that our Ugandan teammate can have a life changing operation. We will get videos, pictures of before and after the surgery and we will get to know this child. We will be sending him an Official Hespeler Shamrock jersey, #18, as well as a warm up t-shirt and shorts and a team picture. The funds the boys raise over the summer will entirely pay for this boy’s surgery, recovery and follow up care as well as getting his family to and from the hospital during the surgery. If we raise extra, the extra money will be used to send the same child to some sort of school upon his recovery, details to follow.
***This is a voluntary thing. I have decided to do this because it shows the boys the impact they can have on another human being as well as it will change a child’s life that has no hope otherwise, however if you or your child do not wish to participate please just privately let me know.