VOL. 3, Issue 1

Year End Review and Year Ahead

Like all businesses and institutions this past year, our charity has made adjustments to operations, incorporating health protocols, and adding more cleaning to keep visitors and children safe.  Thank you to staff and volunteers who went the extra mile to respect our COVID guidelines.

The Bike Shop team exceeded their goals this year providing 547 more bicycles than last year.

Numbers of children coming for sport equipment haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels yet, but our Outreach Program continues to grow and sustain the number of kids helped at 8,912. 

Financially we enjoyed tremendous support from our friends and partners.  Many thanks to each of them who want to see our important work continue.

This year we mark 30 years of service to kids in need of sport equipment.  Everyone associated with Sport Central can celebrate the 180,000 and growing children we have got into the game or onto a bike. 

Thank you for being part of this enterprise!

Sheldon Oleksyn, Executive Director

Bike Shop Quarterly Review – Bike Manager, Gerard Duffy

The Month of August marked a couple of different occurrences; the end of a fabulous summer, our amazing summer students heading back to school and the wrap up of our fiscal year 2020/21.  This summer our students were engaged, had autonomy, and helped us achieve our results.  The volunteers showed they are excellent teachers, mentors, and really great people as well as friends for life.  If you or someone you know is interested in helping us, we are in need of more bike shop volunteers.  Over the past year, our volunteers contributed 3,163 hours servicing bicycles.  There were 2,626 bicycles donated and 2,140 bicycles were given to kids in need despite COVID-19 Provincial shutdowns.  We were able to get kids riding!!!    

We could not complete this amount of work if it wasn’t for our volunteers; Chris Jensen, Barry Johnson, Dirk Kos, Jason Nahnybida, Mark Constable, Scott Reed, Sue Ryniak, Greg Schoepp, Paul Schoepp, Austin Torres, Vansa Chang, Jim Harvey, and Mormon Elders’ Jackson, Lluna, Pitts, McFarland, and Robinson all contributed this year to get bicycles out to the kids. 

The graph above looks like a smile and reflects an increase in smiles on kids in need.

Equipment & Warehouse Report – Sport Equipment Operations Assistant, Karst Bakker

Since May we’ve seen a steady inflow of donated equipment with an increase over the last few months. Thanks to our existing and returning volunteers, we’ve managed to stay on top the donations received. With clients down from previous years, much of the equipment is getting cleaned, sized, boxed and inventoried awaiting outreach shipments. This quarter we’ve inventoried and stored 6,300 pieces while sending over 11,000 pieces for Outreach resulting in a current stock at over 21,000 pieces.

Together Bill Johnson and Roy Tofteland have repaired/serviced over 732 helmets this quarter.  As we enter the Winter season, the need for skating and hockey helmets increases.

This quarter we’ve also received over $45,000 worth of new equipment including:

  • Baseball equipment from Rawlings
  • Skates from NHLPA
  • Miscellaneous Apparel, Bike Bells and Goalie Helmets from United Sport & Cycle
  • Hockey and Goalie Sticks from Warrior from Nick Holden (Ottawa Senators)
  • Bikes, Helmets and Locks from Cummins
  • A couple of loads of used equipment from employees and staff at Gregg Distributors Ltd.

We are still very fortunate to have Darrell Holowaychuk provide us with extra storage at the former Axe Music Building.  Scandinavian Building Services also provides us with a bay for storage beside the Bike Shop.

With the arrival of fall we hope to see more of our seasonal volunteers return and help us out through our busy season. I’d like to give a special thanks to Jerry Stevenson, Daryl Fenrich, Bill Johnson, Mike Tomlinson, Duncan Galloway, Ethan Shaigec, Bob Krewenchuk, Roy Tofteland, Gord Cradock, Gelske Terpstra, Maria Basaraba, Pauline Ma, Elaine Wagner, Don MacDonald, Grant Gaudin, Don Darling, Clayton Anderson, Gordon Harper, Kris Partington, Erin Winch, Jacob Winch, Evan Winch, Mike Kolber, Burke Oswald, Paul O’Shea, Brent Ross, Mitchell Brinegar, Jim Weishaar, Germaine Chau and Jean Posyniak who have done amazing volunteer work these past few months.

Outreach Report

We have been sending a number of shipments to communities over the past few months.  The communities include Grande Cache, Fort Vermilion, and Camrose.  Outside Alberta, shipments were sent to Norman Wells, Tuktoyaktuk, Fort McPherson (shipment in Inuvik pending delivery) in the Northwest Territories.  The shipment via the McKenzie River would not be possible without the help of many supporters.  Many thanks to Matco Moving Solutions, Manitoulin Transport, Rosenau Transport, and Marine Transport Services (Government of Northwest Territories). 

Other communities include; hockey jerseys to a female hockey team in Hall Beach, Nunavut and soccer equipment sent out of country with the cooperation of Bethel Community Church.

Free Play for Kids received soccer goalie gloves and Ben Calf Robe Society, Paul First Nations and Maskwacis all received golf equipment and golf balls for their summer youth programs.

There were also 19 sport ball kits provided to Edmonton Police Service Officers to give away to children in need.

Top referring Agencies

Did you know the top five agencies accounted for 68% of the children helped this past year?  The top agency was KidSport (Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Fort Saskatchewan, and Alberta Chapters) which account for 26% of the children helped.  KidSport qualifies families by income and provides grants to help cover the cost of sport registration.  KidSport then refers the children to Sport Central for the sport equipment they need to be successful on the field, pitch, gym, or rink.  Self-Referrals account for 24% of children helped.  Self-Referrals are families already on social programs such as Edmonton Leisure Access Program, Health Benefits Card, AISH, and Alberta Works.  Boys & Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters account for 9%, followed by Edmonton Immigration Services Association at 6% and Child and Family Services at 4%.