Replay Sports Equipment Recycling

REPLAY is a sports equipment recycling program that supplies used Wilson sports equipment to schools, sports facilities, community groups and charitable organizations in need. It is based on the 3 P's: Pick it up, Play with it and Pass it on! Check out some of some great results of Replay!

In the past several years, Sport and Social Club has donated over $15 000.00 of sports equipment to various groups in Toronto and world wide. With the support of Wilson, we look forward to continuing this program.

To request a donation of equipment, please email us and make sure to state who you are and what organization you represent, what kind of equipment you are looking for, and the quantity of equipment you are looking for. Keep in mind that the Wilson equipment we have is basketballs, footballs, soccer balls, and volleyballs. Please be advised that Sport and Social Club's inventory of equipment varies depending on the time of year.

Gashora Sport and Social Club
From: Melissa Alvares
Sent: November 3, 2009 3:49 PM
To: Chris Loat
Subject: Photos of Rwanda

Hi Chris, Just wanted to send you a quick note to thank you for all the balls that you donated to my trip to Rwanda.

All the sports supplies were taken to the town called Gashora, in rural Rwanda. There are number of reasons why we choose Gashora as the place that needed our help. Gashora is one of the poorest regions in Rwanda and Rwanda is widely considered to be amongst the poorest counties in the world. Rwanda does not possess the rich natural resources that some African nations possess and therefore attracts little foreign investment and attention. One other reason that we felt that Rwanda needed our help was in response to the 1994 genocide that killed close to 1 million people. The citizens of Rwanda have lifted themselves up after that tragedy and have showed incredible resilience in re-building their country but in many ways felt abandoned by the world community.

After 2 weeks of a lot of hard work and sweat (and a few injuries) We were able to construct a basketball court which will be used by the entire community. Building a basketball court in Rwanda consists of laying a foundation of stones by hand, then breaking them up and making them fit together and level. Then you mix cement by hand, shovel it into pans and pass it down a chain and fill the entire court pan by pan!

On the opening day of the court, we brought out all the sports gear and did a little demo of how to play baseball, football, ultimate, volleyball and of course basketball on the new court. This court has become a gathering point for the entire town! Since our mission, the town of Gashora has decided to set up a Youth Sports Cooperative that will focus on economic development for the promotion of sports in Gashora. By the Mayor registering the cooperative, this will generate more support and training for the benefit of youth in Gashora. Summer Basketball, Softball and volleyball camps are being organized as we speak!!

Once again thanks so much for your donation! We take having places to play sports and organizations like TSSC for granted here in Toronto, but for a small community like Gashora it is the greatest gift that we can give them. I have attached a few photos to this email but you can view all of them here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/44043327@N06/sets/72157622669214134/

Cheers,
Melissa