Slam Dunk: Hoops For Hope

On this past weekend, March 25th and 26th, was the 7th annual Hoops for Hope basketball games. The organization Hoops for Hope is a community service group here at AISG, which coordinates the event and helps raise money to donate to charity.

Throughout the morning and early afternoon, the sound of balls bouncing, shoes squeaking, and shots swishing through the net could be heard all over the Science Park gymnasium. This years event was a big hit, and hence a huge success for the Hoops for Hope group. There were quite a few teams who had signed up and chose to participate in this great event to help a good cause. During both days the participating players played hard and a lot of fun playing basketball, especially seeing how they were contributing to a good cause and that the prize for the winning team was free Nike basketball shoes.

The event was open to not just AISG, but also to the whole Guangzhou community. While there were some participants not from AISG, a large amount were AISG students. Despite not having a high number of non – AISG participants, like in years past, there were still quite a few teams that helped make the Hoops for Hope group raise some money for a charity organization. In previous years they had raised money for the Guangzhou Women’s and Children’s Hospital, but This year they wanted to do a bit more so they are collaborating with the Connect4Cancer group and will be donating their money their with them. So far this year the group has raised almost 6,000RMB.

Hoops for Hope Coordinator said that he chose to become the Hoops for Hope coordinator because “I love sports and wanted to raise money for those in need from the exciting game of basketball.” Zhou also added that one goal for them was to allow everyone to have loads of fun. And in the end he did just that, which along with all the money raised helped make the 7th annual Hoops for Hope a good one.