Paddlers for Humanity and Hoops 4 Hope, two stalwart nonprofit organizations that work to better the lives of children here and abroad, are to have fund-raising events this weekend.
On Saturday at dawn, kayakers and stand-up paddleboarders, overseen by Ed Cashin and Lars Svanberg and led by a fleet of vessels, are to set off from Montauk Point for Great Salt Pond on Block Island, an 18-mile crossing that 35 participants made last year in six or so hours. Each paddler must raise at least $1,500 to take part in the crossing, a flier says. The organization, it adds, has raised $2.1 million since the Block Island Challenge’s inception 17 years ago.
Paddlers for Humanity “supports local youth mental health initiatives and programming, including early intervention, anti-bullying, and resiliency. The group also manages its own scholarship program and catastrophic fund for East End families in acute crisis.”
The Bridgehampton School, buildOn, the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation, the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center, the Family Service League, I-Tri, the Retreat, and Project Most have been among Paddlers for Humanity’s beneficiaries.
“To register or sponsor a paddler with a donation,” the flier says, “visit www.p4h.org.”
Luke Babcock said of last year’s challenge, which raised $115,000, that “the serenity and beauty of the open ocean, paddling over dark, glassy swells in water 200 to 300 feet deep, was amazing. . . .”
Also on Saturday will be the second Hoops 4 Hope 3-on-3 basketball tournament at East Hampton High School, beginning at 8 a.m.
There will be brackets in men’s and women’s divisions for 13-to-17-year-olds and for 18-plus. Sign-up is online, through hoops4hope.org, with a $300 entry fee per team, “all of which,” Anthony Allison, the tournament’s director, said, “will go to Hoops 4 Hope programming here and in Zimbabwe and South Africa. There will be food, music, a silent auction, raffles, and a free-throw contest.”
Last year’s inaugural tournament drew 24 teams, 16 that played in the 13-17 bracket and eight in the 18-plus one. Ben Zazula, Mike Locascio, and Jack Freel won the tourney for younger players; the 18-plus division was won by Lawrence Edelstein, Nick Wiener, and Ryan Essner.
Hoops 4 Hope, begun by Mark Crandall in the mid-1990s, has in the years since served thousands of children at Hoops 4 Hope centers in Zimbabwe and South Africa. “We’ve been embedded there for the past 25 years, using basketball as a tool to teach children living in very traumatic communities life skills,” Crandall said at his East Hampton Sports Camp at Sportime the other day.
Before the tourney begins, Levy Mwanza, a native of Zimbabwe who is a longtime East Hampton resident, is expected to lead a ubuntu circle emphasizing the value of working together as a team. Ubuntu means “I am because we are.”
“It’s the spirit of ubuntu that we want to instill,” Allison has said. “That spirit embodies thinking beyond yourself, understanding your skill sets, what you need to work on personally and as a player so that your team is more successful. It’s about how resilient you are when you make a mistake. . . . Everything you take from basketball can be applied to your life; basketball translates very well into life.”
In that regard, both Crandall and Allison said they agreed with David Hollander, a New York University professor and writer, that basketball, an egalitarian sport accessible to all that rewards teams that balance individual talent with concern for the greater good, can, as Hollander propounds in a book published this year, save the world.
Saturday’s tournament is the first part of a Hoops 4 Hope “doubleheader,” the second being a fund-raising party from 5 p.m. on Sunday at the Sagaponack Farm Distillery that will include food donated by a number of top restaurants here, music, games, and a silent auction. Prospective attendees and donors can learn more at hoops4hope.org.
