ACCESsible Kids Sports League

The Cause

ACCESsible Kids Sports League will be a project to help the existing programs' updating, delivery and expansion.

This project will be under the ACCES Health and wellness programs aimed at helping young children, youth and adults alike stay active and pursue healthy lifestyles, including Family Skiing Field trips, Valley Zoo field trips, Calligraphy Workshops, Knowing-the-City Better programs, Photo shops, Cross-cultural Parenting series sessions, Play with Our Children, Walking and Talking with Teenagers, Antiracism Workshops, Peer Tutoring, Youth Dance programs, Oxygen Yoga programs, Zumba Sessions, Family in Motion, Intergenerational Live-Active Event, Basketball activities, PD Day camps, Summer Soccer Activities, Youth Summer Camps, ACCES Basketball Club, and International Chess programs.

As for this specific project, we are going to focus on four aspects as follows:

1. Purchasing new equipment for the soccer and basketball activities. All these nets, cones, or goalie gloves were borrowed or donated from our board members and volunteers. They have been used for the past 7 years, some of the nets and equipment need to be updated in consideration of safety. We will conduct the searching for the right equipment in Dec.2023, and after selecting and comparing, then we will finish ordering and purchasing them by the end of January, 2024.

2. Hiring qualified Coaches. We do not have any grants or funding for hiring Coaches, it is hard to keep a sustainable program solely depends on volunteers without certificated Coaches as the main Coaches. We have close connection with several soccer and basketball clubs, also, we have connection with Edmonton Chess Club, so we are ready to invite experienced and certificated coaches for this project.

3. Gym or site rental. Especially in winter, we had to cancel all the sports activities due to the weather. We need to rent an indoor gym for some of the sports activities such as basketball activities, Family in Motion, international Chess programs and so on. We are going to rent the hall at The Ridge Community League and the Gyms at Terwillegar Rec Centre and St. John XXIII Edmonton Catholic School at the beginning of January 2024.

4. Promotion Cost. We are going to promote this meaningful and affordable project to a larger scale through newspaper, magazine, website and other social media, so we could help more kids and families that really need these activities from different cultural background.

Who Will it Benefit?

These programs are available to all kids, regardless of their place of origin, ethnic background, religious belief, gender, or sexual orientation.

Also, these programs are especially relevant to kids from immigrant families and/or visible minority groups, who, due to language and culture barriers, have less opportunities to develop team working, communication and leadership skills in sports activities. The health and wellness programs promote active, healthy lifestyles among young community members. They also help to connect the kids and bind our communities together, we will cooperate with other organizations if we need, such as Golden Bears from U of A, Sting Club, TNBA, Fast-Pace and ICAN Seniors, Golden Sunshine Club and so on.