Providing Student-Athletes With Sneakers They Do Not Have! Part 3
My students need basketball shoes to wear while participating in intramural basketball practice and games so they have appropriate shoes to wear during practice.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
Living in some of the most financially strapped places in NYC, our students with emotional disturbances come to school every day looking for normalcy, and a place to build friendships while participating in academics as well as intramural sports. Oftentimes during both physical education class as well as regular instruction, our students regularly talk about being excited about intramurals practice and what drills they will be running that afternoon, or who they will be playing against. Rather than sitting back and looking like they are on different teams, it is important to provide our students the ability to look like a unified team. What may seem like a team to us, is much more to our students. While our students are excited to play basketball, they often times do not have the appropriate basketball shoes to wear on the basketball court. While practicing and building upon their social and emotional growth, our students will feel like they matter and their basketball team matters with shoes that match, and are appropriate for basketball. These shoes and athletic socks will work towards raising team unity while raising social and emotional well-being. Together we can give our students basketball shoes!
My Project
When intramural practice or games start every day after school, our students step onto the basketball court in boots, shoes with holes in them, or hand me downs that were new when their older sibling wore them. In order to teach our students the fundamentals of basketball during intramurals and intramural games, they need to be dressed appropriately. Many times throughout practice, our students fall because they have on boots, or stub their toe due to ill-fitting shoes and with all these distractions they cannot focus on basketball. Rather than letting our students become frustrated and give up due to a lack of financial freedom or hand me down shoes, we want to raise the psyche of our student athletes by providing them with unified team shoes. With these basketball shoes and socks, we can change the psyche of our students and show them that individuals do care about their well-being. For most of our athletes, this will be the first time they have ever opened a box of shoes that they can call their own. Together we can put our intramural basketball young men and women on the right foot!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Harris and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.