Reaching beyond the parish walls

St. Stephen’s Basketball Camp began in 2001 with 50 kids, and has grown steadily to include over three times that many! Basketball Camp was founded by longtime parishioner Bernie Loposer, who offers the best description of this amazing, week-long experience:

“We do teach kids how to handle a basketball, and we teach them the fundamentals of the game. But we think that a very important part of learning to play a sport is learning values. So we focus on the values of good sportsmanship, teamwork, and the principles of healthy competition. We have contests, but we do not keep score, because we don’t want them to play to win. We want them to play to learn, to have fun, to learn how to play as a team.

Teaching the young children how to dribble a basketball is like teaching them to have faith-faith that when they push the ball down to the floor of the court, it’s going to come back up. Until they learn that, they reach their hands all the way to the floor to try to catch the ball. But then the ball bounces back up, and it’s fun.”

Twenty years in, Basketball Camp remains one of the most successful and community-oriented outreach activities each year, bringing together parishioners, volunteers, and many local businesses. It is a decisive goal of St. Stephen’s Basketball Camp to be as inclusive as possible, which means a non-sectarian focus and plenty of scholarship opportunities for families from throughout the community, not just the South Hill.