#1 HEALTH INSURANCE FOR 10,000 PEOPLE
With our biggest healthcare sponsorship effort since inception, Shooting Touch provided 10,000 Rwandan individuals with basic health insurance this year! Offering some much-need protection and stress-relief in this unpredictable climate proved to be our most impactful initiative of 2021. At Shooting Touch, we believe health insurance is a right, not a privilege.
#2 TEAM EXPANSION
Our new Executive Director, Marcia Robinson, Boston Program Director, Kamilah Washington, Marketing and Development Coordinator, Jackie Lyons, and Board Member, Grant Williams are the additions everyone in this industry longs for. We can’t wait to see where this organization will go with this dream team involved!
#3 HOOPS FOR HEALTH
There’s nothing better than getting hundreds of people in a gym together to enjoy basketball games, receive health education and tangible health intervention, and inspire each other and their community that the “whole is greater than the sum of our parts” in Boston. Thanks to all in attendance and support of our 2021 Hoops for Health Basketball Tournament. We’ll see you next year!
#4 $1MILLION IN REVENUE
With major investments from Nike, Converse, Comic Relief, JDS Sports and more, Shooting Touch capped our most successful year to date as we acquired over $1 million in revenue! To all of the individual donors, family foundations and corporate sponsors, thank you for believing in our mission.
#5 AAU THE RIGHT WAY
When our basketball courts in Rwanda closed down and stay-at-home orders went into effect, our women, boys, and girls stepped up to help Shooting Touch push on. To ensure that our daily sessions of physical activity and health education were getting to our 1,850 players in rural areas, a resilient group of 60 women and 10 kids took part in a tele-health “Buddy System”, providing our play-based curriculum to all participants via thousands of phone calls and socially-distanced home visits throughout the year. Over 8,500 physical and mental health lessons were taught in 2021!
#6 TELE-HEALTH BUDDY SYSTEM
With the top-ranked point guard and shooting guard in New England, numerous college recruitment letters, and plenty of tournament upsets, our Boston AAU teams are causing quite the stir within the AAU circuit. This past year, Shooting Touch Boston’s “AAU the Right Way” program provided 45 girls with free competitive basketball, health education and intervention, and a vital sisterhood and group of mentors to grow alongside of. The best part – we’re just getting started!
#7 MENTAL HEALTH SUMMER CLINIC
After a year hiatus, Shooting Touch’s annual gala celebration returned in 2021, gathering new faces, inspiring new ideas, and galvanizing this organization beyond its previous threshold. Thank you to all in attendance at our 2021 Hoopla! event and we hope to see you next year!
#8 SHOOTING TOUCH GALA
Our Youth-Led Summer Basketball Clinic was a major hit this year. A week of hoops and friends, with the theme of “improving our mental well-being,” is just what our elementary and middle school-aged girls needed after a long and taxing school year. Run by our Shooting Touch Boston high school players, this engaging clinic provided a safe and supportive space for girls to exercise, convey emotions, and simply be themselves.
#9 RWANDA FOOD PROGRAM
How do you grow the women’s game? Invest in them. That’s exactly what Shooting Touch decided to do in partnership with SISRun, a local non-profit that runs an all-women’s summer basketball league to help build sisterhood and increase awareness around women’s basketball in Boston. 150+ women and girls involved in an 8-week summer league is rejuvenizing us all – we love this partnership!
#10 SISRUN COLLAB
With food insecurity on the rise this past year, our international team pivoted to meet the needs of our beloved Rwandan beneficiaries. By implementing a community-wide food program, Shooting Touch provided nearly 50 Rwandan families with a regular supply of food for their entire family. Keeping people healthy may have looked different this year, but it remained our top priority.