Sunbury Basketball Association (SBA) is helping to dress basketball players in Papua New Guinea by donating new and second-hand Sunbury Jets clothing and bags.
Through working closely with FIBA Oceania, SBA is donating nine boxes of apparel, including; singlets, shorts, tracksuit pants, polo shirts and coaches’ bags.
SBA president Darren Watkins said the idea started when he became president and found storage cabinets full of new and used clothing and bags.
“I went into our storage cabinets and found all this clothing… this led me to have conversations with staff members and with [FIBA],” Mr Watkins said.
“We have stuff that’s never been used… [and] we’ve got some clothes that are probably 15 years old.
“It’s pointless to throw it in the bin, we want to spread it out.”
Mr Watkins said they understands how expensive sport can be and they want to help those in a less fortunate position.
“The clothing aspect of any sport isn’t cheap, we didn’t want to throw them away,” he said.
“It fits in to who we want to be as an organisation, which is inclusive, diverse, [and] we want to ensure we cater to as many different backgrounds and cultures as possible.”
Mr Watkins said they have been working on the project for almost eight months and are hoping to have the boxes depart Australia in July.
Zoe Moffatt
