TORONTO — Bins overflowing with hockey equipment may not be the first items we think of when our day school students decide to collect something.
Seen at Moss Park are, from left, Jim Telfer, president of the Gord Summers Memorial Hockey League, CHAT students Marlon Rosenberg and Joshua Smith, and league vice-president Will Wade.
But two Grade 12 students at the Wilmington campus of the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (TanenbaumCHAT) wanted to give something back to the community and initiated a project to do just that.
Joshua Smith and Marlon Rosenberg, co-presidents of the Toronto Maple Leafs fan club at TanenbaumCHAT, looked for a project that would be of interest to their fan club and would also be an exercise in tikkun olam (repairing the world).
Smith says that after their research and many phone calls to community organizations and hockey leagues, they contacted the Gord Summers Memorial Hockey League.
“We found out that it is the last free hockey organization in Canada where they give equipment and ice time to anyone that walks through the doors of the [Moss Park] Arena,” says Smith.
Smith and Rosenberg established the CHAT Hockey Equipment Drive, to collect used and new hockey equipment for underprivileged children.
They prepared flyers that were posted in the school and they sent out e-mails to their family and friends.
“Within 2-1/2 weeks, we collected more than 12 overflowing bins of hockey equipment,” Smith says.
The Gord Summers Memorial League has been in operation for 50 years. It is a non-profit organization operated by volunteers that gives children in the Moss Park and Regency Park areas a chance to participate in Canada’s national sport.
With the help of parents, Smith and Rosenberg delivered four full carloads of equipment to the league, which is run out of the Moss Park Arena at Sherbourne and Queen streets.
“The president of the league, Jim Telfer, and vice-president, Will Wade, met us at the arena,” Smith says. “They were overwhelmed by the amount of equipment that we had collected at CHAT and complimented us on the effort we put forward for the underprivileged children.
“They were very happy to receive the equipment, and Marlon and I are very happy that this project was such a success. We’re considering other projects in the future that will help less fortunate young people.”
Along with hockey equipment and free ice time, donations to the Gord Summers Memorial Hockey League help purchase sweaters and other equipment, and the league provides for a banquet for the children at the end of the season.
Smith notes that any equipment not used by the Gord Summers Memorial Hockey League is redistributed to the Council Fire Indian Association.
