Desi Today Magazine
The non profit organization brought together kids across cultures and race at the Langley Events Centre on Family Day to meet and greet Vancouver Giants
This year’s Family Day left a remarkable impact on many kids of Fraser Valley area. All thanks to KidsPlay foundation that brought kids and their families to Langley Events Centre to meet, greet and skate with the players of Vancouver Giants hockey club.
The thought behind organizing this event was to encourage kids of different age groups to get motivated and inspired by the hockey players.
The day started with kids across different cultures, race and communities and schools arriving at the centre early morning hours with volunteers offering free pick up and drop service. The kids and their parents were given free skates to expand their horizon and enter the arena. A special time slot was given for these kids to shake hands, and meet the Vancouver Giants.
Scholarship worth 500 dollars were also offered to 5 lucky winners to expand their wings and get into training of some sport.
KidsPlay Foundation is the non profit organization working towards keeping kids away from the lifestyle of drugs, gangs, and violence. Kids Play holds sports tournaments, conferences, and other projects for the youth community to learn about the opportunities they can seize within life. The organization is operated by leaders from all across the Lower Mainland wanting to bring a positive change within the community.
Kal Dosanjh, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of KidsPlay is the man behind the scene working tirelessly for this noble cause. A veteran police officer for more than 19 years with Vancouver Police Department, felt the need for such organization during his posting at the Downtown East Side. ” As a patrol officer, I saw lot of kids entering into drugs and the gang lifestyle. I realized as opposed to arresting them and sending them to jail, there is so much we can do for these kids because some of them might be deprived of the opportunities of getting into sports or extracurricular educational activities or organized sports. Normally these are the kind of children who become susceptible to the gang lifestyle,” he said.
He thought of giving them a good positive support to prevent them from getting into the gang lifestyle or to pull them out of it. His aim was to put them on the right track. He started a small program at the Downtown East Side where he started introducing free sports programs for the inter-city kids. “The program was a huge success and eventually from the Downtown east side we grew into organizing a bigger event at the BC place where 1500 kids participated. And that became foundation to creating KidsPlay. We created it in 2015 and already 40,000 kids have gone through our programs,” he said.
Even the family day event was organized to partner up with a successful organization such as Vancouver Giants that have young ambitious motivated athletes. “We want young kids to see them as inspiration and share the same dreams and aspirations. We want to show the kids and their families dream big and they just need the right people and support network to achieve their dreams.”
Dosanjh said that kids from different religion and ethnicities were invited to attend the event because the foundation’s aim is to provide sports opportunity to kids across communities.”Drugs and gangs do not discriminate. They hit and impacts all communities. That is why we want all communities as one village to come together. We do not want any kid to be deprived of entering into sports because of lack of exposure, guidance or finances. We are there to support them,” he added.
He also requested the parents to participate in such programs with their kids and approach KidsPlay Foundation in case they need any support. All the programs are free of cost.
