By Sports for Smiles

Helping Northern Youth

Sports for Smiles Donates to Montreal Lake Cree Nation and Inuvik, NWT

Jan 13, 2021 | 9:36 AM

The Sports For Smiles team donated $500 to two rural communities in Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories!

Following community fundraisers throughout the pandemic, the team gathered funds and has received generous equipment donations for their two sponsor communities: Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan and Inuvik, NWT.

For the new year,the group has planned online leadership seminars over Skype to further engage with our community youth, and break the barriers between rural and urban communities in sports!

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted rural communities the most. We hope to spread some holiday cheer and brighten the New Year!

The group’s goal is to select a different community every year and positively impact youth in each community who would otherwise not have access to the resources and information regarding sports and leadership opportunities of different grades.

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“We have made significant progress on our mission; we have impacted two communities in two different provinces across Canada: Inuvik, Northwest Territories, and Montreal Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan. We hope that this donation will help further the opportunities for youth in sports and leadership in both communities, and soon other rural communities across Canada!

Sports For Smiles is a non-profit organization that strives to provide youth with sports opportunities, equipment, and leadership seminars who have limited access to sports opportunities mainly due to the remoteness of their communities. “Our goal is to provide Canadian youth with the opportunity to play sports and connect and engage with others in a fun and friendly environment. We are striving to give youth the experience of not only being a part o fa team, but a second family, while developing a sense of community, leadership and teamwork. With the help of our team’s local high school and communities across the Metro Vancouver area, we have developed a project that aims to benefit youth across Canada, especially those of northern and rural communities.”

After learning about the lack of sport opportunities for many youth in remote and northern communities across Canada, Janeva Shahi felt the need to do something for her school aged counterparts in rural areas. In 2017, she founded Sports For Smiles as an effort to mentally, socially, and physically impact northern youth by providing them with sports and leadership opportunities.

“There is a significant difference between urban communities such as Vancouver and Toronto,and further isolated communities that are rural. We are aware of the lack of sports opportunities in rural communities; this is our main drive as we want Canada’s rural communities to have equal opportunities that we youth in British Columbia have. Instead of simply identifying these to two types of communities as different areas in isolation and moving on, we want to connect them and create a national community on the basis of sports and leadership.”

For more information and updates on Sports For Smiles, please visit ​www.sportsforsmiles.org​. – Janeva Shahi; Founder & President of Sports For Smiles