When Rob Babcock was the general manager of the Toronto Raptors, he received a phone call from Gordon Hudson, Director of Youth Services for the Cree Nation, detailing the tremendously difficult time many of the kids were having in remote reserves of the Cree Nation.
A small, government subsidized community with a one percent graduation rate, an area known as "Great Whale" has seen increasingly tough times since its people were relocated and forced to change their culture. Indeed, the Great Whale community suffers with depression, suicide and substance abuse; so remote is the Canadian version of an American Indian Reservation that the only way to get there is to take a three hour plane ride due north from Ottawa.
Yet it's there that Babcock returns each and every year to assist Hudson in putting on a basketball - and life - camp for the kids of the region. His goal and the aim of several other dedicated volunteers is to remind the kids about the importance of teamwork, provide some outside role models whose lives towards which they can aspire, and most importantly, to give the kids something to dream about ... something to believe in.
