Dribble, Aim, Shoot! - Singapore, 4 August 2007

64 athletes, 13 Salesforce.com employees, 7 partners and friends, 10 student volunteers and 4 Singapore Slingers representatives. The location is the Singapore American School and the reporting time was 8.00 am.

This is neither an illegal gathering nor a school parent support group meeting. All these people are gathered, bright and early, to play basketball with a difference.

Spearheaded by Aaron Katz, VP Corporate Sales APAC, a basketball clinic was organized with the Special Olympics Singapore (SOS) to re-introduce basketball as a sport to athletes who are also intellectually disabled youths. The clinic is an opportunity to test and try out the skills of their athletes to take up this sport. The SOS is a non-profit, charitable organization which contributes to the lifelong physical, social and personal development of intellectually disabled people.

Volunteers were divided into two groups - Skills Station ICs (In-charge) or Liaison Officers. Skills Stations ICs helped to man stations where athletes learnt to practice and carried out specific skill tests for basketball playing such as target ball passing, stationary dribbling, aiming and shooting. Liaison Officers were attached to respective groups of athletes to bring them to the stations for their activities. After a short warm-up session, the athletes and our volunteers were raring to go.

The Skills Station ICs took their jobs very seriously. They patiently explained and demonstrated the required skills to play at the same time trying to engage the athletes' interests and helping the less-abled ones. Even the Liaison Officers pitched in to help in between their shepherding duties. We do not know who was having more fun- the athletes or the volunteers- with the glow that lighted up their eyes when an athlete succeed at hitting the target or able to dribble continuously. There were many cheers that went on when one scored and encouragements were generously given to every small effort tried.

I overheard someone whispered on the stands, ‘Wah, you know their CEO, Steve Russell is also here, coaching and playing with the boys. Very nice of him, isn't it?' My heart swelled with pride and a grin fettered across my cheeks. This is the salesforce.com volunteering spirit for you. On the court, we have executives, managers, management team, friends, partners, family members- all contributing their bit of time and energy to make this happen for these special youths.

Later in the morning came the highlight of the event, the Singapore Slingers played a short demonstration with our salesforce.com volunteers. Cheers and claps rang out loud and nonstop regardless which team scored and the athletes eagerly stepped out to play when they were asked. From that point onwards, it was an organized mess on the courts where teams of athletes and volunteers played among themselves and the athletes learnt the excitement and adrenaline of playing a game and testing out their newly learnt skills. Sitting on the sidelines, I noticed that while the Slingers were playing, they were also making an effort to let the athletes shoot the basket and coaching them as they go along.

The clinic ended with a group photo with everyone but some of the athletes did not want to go home and continued playing until we have to chase them off the courts. However this is only the beginning. After the clinic, the volunteers are encouraged to sign up as coach assistants to help in the training and coaching of these athletes in basketball. We are also planning a carnival in mid November for the athletes to test their newly learnt skills with friendly matches and skills-test competitions. Salesforce.com volunteers will also be assisting in this event. So stay tuned!

More photos here