For the second year, Ehrlo Sport Venture has teamed up with the Open Door Society to host a multi-sport camp for youth new to Canada. The four-day camp ran from August 1st – 4th and covered sports ranging from the more familiar basketball and Canadian football, to more unique like cricket and lacrosse.
“Lacrosse was something they’d never seen – it was so new to them, and they were really stoked to learn. It was a lot of fun,” said Amanda McConnell Sport Venture manager.
The camp was established last year when the Open Door Society reached out to Sport Venture and asked if they could help out with planning recreation-related programming for their youth. Approximately 32 youth came out on each of the four days.
“One of our mandates is to connect our clients to the community and help them integrate and adapt so our relationship with Sport Venture one way for us to introduce them to different community resources and form relationships that could help them in addressing all their needs," stated Roberto Misterio, youth program coordinator at Open Door Society.
“Last year, we put it together really quickly – but we had so much support from people in community that we reached out to, and from within our own agency as well … to connect us with (groups like) the Rugby Club,” Amanda explained.
“The kids had so much fun and we had so much fun – it went so well that the Open Door Society asked us to run it again.”
Similar to last year’s camp, Sport Venture provided equipment but stepped back from coaching and had their staff in more of a support role. They utilized other community connections to fill the role of coach – the Regina Rebels taught cricket, Elite Basketball Academy ran the basketball camp, and Drew Hincks from Regina Heat Lacrosse was in charge of lacrosse. Drew also provided half of the lacrosse sticks and all the balls used in camp that day.
“The staff at Sport Venture – we could run it, but why not bring in the people who know best?” Amanda explained.
The camp also allows the new youth to learn about Sport Venture’s leagues and library, to help fill their sport needs throughout the rest of the year.
“Sport Venture has been very generous in providing sports training to our youth clients, particularly popular Canadian sports,” added Roberto.
