President Bill Orthner (L) with Janna Tominuk,(R) Exec. Director of Sports Central
Thank you Janna for your great presentation and update this past Thursday on what Sports Central does for the communities that they support! Now in their 33rd year they still live by their motto of "Changing lives through sport".
Janna says that it never gets old seeing the smiles on the faces of the young kids that receive gently used or repaired and refurbished sports equipment. Their area of assistance covers from Red Deer north to the provincial northern border and they are now dealing with lots of the refugee newcomers to the province. Hockey equipment and bikes are by and large the 2 biggest items of used equipment that they deal with out of the 20 other different sports and recreational activities now being played.
Sports Central has 46 different drop off locations and our local drop off is located at Jiffy Lube on Sparrow Drive. Paul Schoepp is the owner at Jiffy Lube and has been volunteering with Sports Central for 11 years on Tuesday nights repairing bikes and refurbishing other equipment! Thank you Paul for your service!
Volunteers are a huge part of Sports Central with an average of 80 people that have logged over 7703 hours this past season working in the bike shop, data entry, equipment collection, sorting & repairing, reception, sharpening skates and servicing cross country skis & equipment.
This past year they have repaired 2241 bikes, 2142 pieces of other equipment, sharpened 2293 pairs of skates and repaired 1956 helmets serving 10,534 kids which is a 45% increase over last year! They are now looking for larger facilities as they are now spread out over several warehouses and would like to consolidate everything they do under one roof. Thanks again Janna for your interesting presentation!
Celebrate Rotary
Leduc County, AB T9E0V4
Canada