By Rebecca Aldous - North Shore Outlook

While 12-year-old Malik Gleason shot baskets, his thoughts were with his adopted sister.

Gleason and his mother, Whitney, visited three orphanages in China before they found Jianjun. Although staff worked hard, there were a lot of children to look after in the facilities, he recalls. The conditions were clean but tough, he says.

“On my birthday I sent money to the orphanage,” he says.

And last month, his three-year-old sister was in his head as he and other 3D Basketball Academy students took part in a Hoops4Hope shoot-a-thon.

Approximately 50 members of the under-12 and under-13 boys and girls teams raised close to $2,000 for the non-profit organization that uses basketball as a tool to educate children in South Africa about HIV, as well as teaching them life skills.

“I think we kind of take things for granted. We don’t think about what is going on around us,” Gleason says, adding Hoops4Hope is a good reminder of our fortunate position, while also helping others.

Going door-to-door around his neighbourhood, he raised $300 for the event. This was the inaugural year for the academy to host a shoot-a-thon for the organization, says Jamie Oei, head of the academy’s boys program.

The players also brought in 50 pairs of shoes, 24 basketballs and many uniforms to be shipped to Cape Town, the former Douglas College men’s basketball coach adds. Besides the academy’s North Shore students, members in its Lower Mainland locations also hosted shoot-a-thons the same day.