By Krista Siefken
Black Press
It's hard - perhaps impossible - to play soccer without a soccer ball, or hockey without a hockey stick.
Which is why when Morgan Anson learned that kids of the Ditidaht First Nation couldn't form a team simply because they didn't have they necessary equipment, she and a friend took it upon themselves to change that.
Even though they live in Coquitlam.
Even though they're in Grade 8.
Anson, 13, and her friend, Kayla Daly, started the Play It Forward Youth Sports Foundation as a class project that's expanded into something the teens hope will continue long after they've gotten their letter grade.
"I haven't done anything like this before," said Anson, a student at Summit Middle School. "Everyone else (in our class) was doing something like raising money for an organization of some sort and that's what I thought I would be doing."
But when Anson and Daly heard about the lack of sports equipment at Ditidaht - from Anson's uncle, Jason, who works with the Nitinat Lake-based First Nation community - they knew they'd found a project they could be passionate about.
"He was explaining that the 50 school-age children in the community he was in had limited or no sports equipment to play with, let alone any sports teams or after-school programs," Anson wrote on Facebook.
Daly and Anson, who is of Aboriginal descent, obtained permission from their school to take their project out of their home community so that they could help young athletes in Ditidaht, located near Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island.
"I play soccer and field hockey and all different sports, and when I need a new pair of cleats I can just walk down to a store near my house - some kids didn't even know what cleats were," Anson told Black Press.
"They have five basketballs, and six volleyballs."
That changes this weekend, when a group of students from the mainland arrives with thousands of dollars' worth of sports equipment.
Until last week, it was all piled in Anson's basement.
"We've collected about 200 soccer balls, enough jerseys for about three teams, boxes and boxes of shoes and clothes and school equipment," she said. "So many schools and people have been helping out."
Support has been significant, especially after Anson and Daly started using Facebook to get the word out.
And that success has Anson and Daly planning to continue the sports foundation and assist other communities struggling with a lack of sporting equipment.
Jason Anson said the two students were welcomed warmly when they arrived last Friday afternoon.
"It's been surprising how many people have come together, how this has taken it's own course," he said. "When (Morgan) came up with the idea, we didn't know where it was going to end up.
"[The Ditidaht kids] don't have a lot of equipment to start with. And there's not a lot of funding out there to give them the equipment - they're out of sight, out of mind."
For more information, visit the Play It Forward Youth Sports Foundation Facebook page.
