Belair Edison Middle School Girls Basketball Team

Team fundraiser

Jesse Cooperman and Kymahni West are organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Hey All,

I am a teacher for Baltimore City Schools, and I serve middle school students in the Belair-Edison neighborhood. My students are between 11 and 14 years old. As a part of our after school program, I am the head coach for our girls basketball team. We have a team of 12 amazing young ladies, who have a range of basketball experience from playing on an AAU team to dribbling the ball for the first time. We practice twice a week, and starting in January, our games will start, against other schools all across the city. We do not have a gym at our school. Our young ladies are extremely dedicated to our team: there are times when we practice outside, in coats and hats, at local neighborhood courts because we can't afford to rent gym space for the entire season. Myself and our assistant coach take our players to practice and games in our cars, and then we drop the players off at home after, given that it is dark out and not safe for them to walk home late at night.

The money that I am raising will go to a variety of on-court and off-court experiences for our players.

Transportation: We need to rent a van so that we can transport our team to and from practice and games. While we are using our cars for now, we can't fit our whole team in two cars so some players get left out each week. Renting a van will ensure all players are with the team and engaged in all activities.
Gym Space: We are working with our community partners to rent gym space in the neighborhood so that we can practice consistently.
Shoes: Our players do not own basketball shoes. They play in their daily sneakers, which works for the short term, but basketball shoes are very important for them to have because it'll allow them to grip the court and be more stable, as well as protect their ankles and knees from serious injury.
Bags: Given that we are traveling across the city to a variety of gyms, our players need their own bags in order to keep their jerseys, shoes, water, and everything else they need for the game in one place so it's easy to carry and not nothing gets lost.
Practice Equipment: Right now we have 3 basketballs for the entire team, and that's it. We want to be able to have a ball for every player, as well as cones and ladders and other equipment that can help us run drills in practice to improve their skills.
Out of School Experiences: Given that our players are between 11-14 years old, we want to provide them experiences off the court, related to basketball, that can help them grow and mature as individuals. There are a variety of Women's college basketball teams in our area: Morgan State University (HBCU), Coppin State University (HBCU), Towson University, Howard University (HBCU). We go to their games to see high level basketball and pick up on new skills, but also we meet up with the players after the game in order to form mentoring relationships between our young ladies these players. Last year we were able to raise funds to take the train to Washington DC to see a Howard University Women's game and we were able to spend the day in DC visiting different museums and monuments. For most of our team, this was the first time they had ever left the city of Baltimore. We want to provide more experiences like this by going to Philadelphia and New York City with our team.