Volunteers challenge clients to a game of basketball

Game highlights: team work and new sports equipment

He shoots, he scores! These are some of the usual highlights one would expect at most games, but at the basketball game staged between CAMH corporate volunteers from St. Joseph Communications and students from Toronto District Secondary School (TDSS) at the College Street site, the point of the game wasn’t winning, but instead to engage clients and community to demonstrate team work while showing compassion and understanding for youth living with mental illness.

On Tuesday May 13th, St. Joseph Communications, the largest privately owned communications company in Canada, sent seven corporate volunteers to play basketball with the students from the TDSS at CAMH.

Back row: (Left to right) CAMH Sports Group Volunteer Kate Bogomolny; TDSS Instructor Janice Karlinsky; Corporate Volunteer Coordinator Jim Davey; St Joseph Communications volunteers Susan Clarke and Brant Caughill. Front row: Diane Rother, Samantha Barker, Roseanne Dela Rosa, Margrit Zimmerman and Lisa Holzwarth.

As a Section 23 school within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), TDSS is housed at the College Street site and operates a day school/treatment program for 16 adolescents with a range of mental health issues. The students have a wide range of academic abilities, and are in varying states of recovery and treatment and come from extremely diverse socioeconomic, religious and racial backgrounds.

“The St. Joseph Communications volunteers displayed understanding and compassion. They were able to establish a natural rapport with the students and staff,” said Jim Davey, Corporate Volunteer Coordinator.

By making the students feel comfortable, the volunteers engaged them right to the very end. Kate Bogomolny, the sports group volunteer for the TDSS program, did a great job of forming joint student and volunteer teams. The positive modelling volunteers showed to the students resulted in increased teamwork and sportsmanship among the students.

"I’d like to thank you for the most amazing day yesterday! We had so much fun and it was absolutely phenomenal to see such an enlightening group of people. What a breathe of fresh air! Yesterday was such a dose of reality and I’d love to just help out with anything you need," said an enthusiastic volunteer.

And not only did the St. Joseph Communications group take the time to volunteer, they also donated new basketballs, volleyballs and t-shirts for the program and the event itself. The partnership and camaraderie developed between the corporate volunteers and students was amazing. It was a great day for everyone!