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As the summer Olympics has come to an end, two Mountain View high school students are gearing up with an equipment donation drive to help underprivileged youth gain better access to the world of sports.
It is not the first time Arya Jamkhandi and Aanya Singh, who attend St. Francis High School in Mountain View, have organized a donation drive. As student athletes, Jamkhandi and Singh noticed that it was expensive to participate in organized sports and, for some kids, the cost of equipment could become a barrier to doing what they loved.
“We just wanted to have people donate their youth sports equipment and then give it to kids who might not be able to normally afford it,” Singh said.
Inspired to do something about it, Jamkhandi and Singh started a foundation, Promoting Leadership in Athletics and Youth Sports, or PLAYS. This past spring, they collected about 90 pieces of sports equipment after setting up donation boxes at St. Francis. The gear was then given to the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula (BGCP) for their summer camps, Singh said.
After the success of the first drive, Jamkhandi and Singh have set their sights further afield. They also want to help girls who have fewer athletic opportunities than boys.
“A lot of times girls are discouraged from playing sports,” Singh said, noting that once they drop out, it’s harder to play sports later in life, especially in countries that tend to emphasize boys and men’s teams.
In partnership with Honduras Child Alliance, Jamkhandi and Singh have organized a second donation drive, this time at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale. They are hoping to receive soccer, baseball and basketball gear, although all kinds of athletic equipment will be accepted, they said.
All donations will go to the Honduras Child Alliance, which then will distribute the gear to girls in Honduras, they said. The donation drive will run until the month of October at Sports Basement at 1177 Kern Ave. in Sunnyvale.
