MOOSOMIN — Moosomin will be one of the three hosting communities for this year’s Adam Herold Legacy Foundation Leadership Camp.
In memory of Herold, who lost his life in the Humboldt Broncos bus tragedy, a camp is hosted every year to help provide young men and women with the opportunities to refine both their leadership and hockey skills.
“Adam Herold was a big leader in his community and encouraged a lot of people. This camp is to not only train the kids in on-ice development skills but also to encourage them to be leaders in their community as well,” said Summer Heide of the Moosomin Minor Hockey Association.
“This is a really awesome program for us to get picked for. We’re super excited to host it.”
The camp will be held in Moosomin on October 21 to 22 and on January 14. It will be open to kids who are part of the Moosomin Minor Hockey League.
“I think they can take 150 to 160 kids, and our organization has just over 200. Hopefully, it will be open to U11 to U18 players,” said Heide.
The program will consist of a balance of on and off-ice training, teaching kids skills that can be used for hockey, as well as leadership training and team building. Former NHL players and experts will be leading the sessions throughout the different camp days.
“I think the kids are going to have so much fun,” Heide said. “Also, because they know how many female hockey players are in our organization, we have quite a high number of girls, they’re going to try and bring a female coach out as well.
“Our coaches also get to go on the ice to help out with running the sessions, but they also get mentoring for coaching as well.”
Looking for donations to help support the program
Although there is no charge for the program, the Moosomin Hockey Association is encouraged to raise funds in support of helping the Adam Herold Legacy Foundation Leadership Camp continue.
“How the program works is they don’t give us a cost. The program is free to come to our community, they just ask that we give them a donation to keep their organization going forward so that other communities can continue to have this program offered to them,” said Heide.
“We just have to fundraise and give what we can. We’re hoping with being one of their biggest organizations that we can give them a pretty generous donation back because we really appreciate them coming out.
“We don’t have a specific goal in mind, but the Moosomin Senior Rangers have already stepped up to donate their proceeds from their Halloween bash. That will give our fundraising a good boost.
“We also want to find some fundraisers that the kids can help us with as well. We’ll be looking at different things the kids can be involved in because one of the requirements of the program is also each kid will take part in doing 10 hours of volunteer community work throughout the year.
“The foundation really likes to see the kids involved in the fundraising aspect of it too just to build their confidence in teamwork.”
Heide said local businesses in town have already contributed to helping out, during the three days of the Adam Herold leadership camp.
“This will be great for our kids, but because it’s a big event to take on we’re going to need some volunteers to help us with running the program,” she said.
“We’re going to need some business sponsors. We’ve already got a few lined up, Canalta Hotel Moosomin is sponsoring our rooms for all of the instructors who are coming out. They normally bring five instructors out to each camp, but because ours is so much bigger than every other one, they’re bringing eight out to Moosomin.
“The Red Barn is also volunteering to supply all of the instructors’ meals.”
People from the community can also contribute by volunteering their time, said Heide.
“People can help if they’re willing to be a volunteer for the days that we have when the instructors are out here,” Heide said.
“There’s various things we’ll need help with to make things run smoothly.
“Also if any businesses would like to be a sponsor for the event, that way we can cover costs for our ice fees, or to sponsor so we can donate back to their organization, that would be awesome too.
“Also advertising the program for them is another thing they encourage us to do, helping us spread the word. If people share our posts on Facebook about how exciting this is that would be awesome.”
How can kids sign up?
Heide said the Moosomin Minor Hockey Association will reach out to members who are a part of the organization with details for how they can sign up for the camp.
“We’re super excited to host it. We’ve been trying for a few years, but the foundation wanted to get some experience with it before they took our organization on with such a high number of kids,” said Heide.
“We’re really excited that we’ve been chosen this year.”
People can also reach out to Heide at: [email protected].
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