By the time the doors close at 1 p.m. Saturday on the annual spring used sports equipment sale put on by KidSport Tri-Cities, hundreds of kids and adults will be outfitted with skates, hockey and baseball gloves, golf clubs, tennis racquets and even bicycles at a fraction of their new cost. Dozens of kids will also benefit by getting their registration fees paid by the money raised from the sale.
But what happens to the gear that doesn’t find a new home?
Thanks to a serendipitous misunderstanding about a golf tournament, unsold equipment like hockey skates, shin, shoulder and elbow pads, as well as baseball mitts, bats and helmets will still help put smiles on kids’ faces — in Nunavut.
Barry Hickman, a retired district commander with Surrey RCMP, had already been sending up bags of hockey and baseball gear to the force’s outposts in the far north after he pulled some relief tours there prior to putting up his feet for good. Then a chance connection at a golf tournament that he thought was being put on by the Vancouver Canucks but was, in fact, a KidSport fundraiser with a guest speaker from the Canucks, inspired him to boost his effort.
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Along with his buddy Gord Kerr, who recently retired from the city of Surrey’s engineering department, they learned KidSport’s spring and fall sales often have piles of gear still left on the tables when the events are done.
A lightbulb went off in Hickman’s head, he said. Instead of sending 75 hockey bags of gear he and Kerr could manage to collect on their own every year, they could double, triple and even quadruple their effort to benefit kids in Nunavut's remote communities.
“It’s like it was meant to be,” Hickman said.
But collecting, storing, sorting, repairing, packing and, ultimately, shipping that much sports equipment takes some planning, he said.
With both their families volunteering at the spring and fall sales, Hickman said they’re able to survey the offerings and target the gear they’ll need. If it remains unsold, it’s packed into boxes and big plastic bins that are then piled into vehicles for transport to his Surrey home. There, it takes Hickman, Kerr and helpers about three days to sort the equipment, effect minor repairs like lacing skates, or replacing straps in helmets and pads. Then the gear is put into boxes for free transport by a friend’s trucking company to Winnipeg, where it’s loaded onto a plane with spare cargo capacity for the final leg of the journey to the far north.
Hickman said it’s important the gear is distributed to the kids in communities like Chester Inlet and Coral Harbour by local RCMP officers as it helps forge positive connections.
“The kids are just ecstatic,” he said, adding the gear’s arrival is often so anticipated, some of the older kids will greet the transport plane at the airport if word gets out it’s en route. “It’s like Christmas to them.”
Hickman said in his limited time working in remote northern communities, he got a look at the challenges facing kids who have few organized activities to fill their time and no resources even if someone resolved to put together a hockey or baseball team. He said providing the gear gives them a chance to find an escape from hardships like poverty, drug and alcohol abuse as well as escalating suicide rates.
“They can entertain themselves and forget all the horrible things in their lives,” Hickman said. “They can have an opportunity to chase a dream.”
Kerr said the opportunity that sport provides is universal.
“It’s been a really good thing for the kids to be able to do something positive in their lives,” he said, adding nothing shipped is ever rejected. “If it’s there at the sale, I can find a home for it.”
• Saturday’s KidSport sale begins at 10 a.m. at Riverside secondary school, 2215 Reeve St., Port Coquitlam. Admission is by donation or items for the Share food bank. Cash and credit cards are accepted.
• Donations of used sports equipment can be dropped off until Friday at the following locations: the arena lobby at Port Coquitlam community centre; the front desk at the Port Moody rec complex; and the front desk at the Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex in Coquitlam.
