Sponsors, Fans Needed For Habitat For Humanity Basketball Fundraiser

Rick Wells, News On 6

JENKS, Oklahoma -- Most of us are familiar with Habitat for Humanity - not so much with Youth United. That's a division of Habitat - for young people - a way to involve youth ages 5 to 25.

Some of Oklahoman's Own have already built one Habitat house and are working on fundraising for house number two.

"We have three weeks almost," said a volunteer.

Parth Singh and Michael Van Camp are seniors at Jenks High School and members of Youth United. That's a branch of Habitat for Humanity and they're raising money to build a house.

Our goal is to raise $15,000," said Michael Van Camp.

Their Habitat advisor Jamie Cox, says these kids and the dozen or so others in the program are pretty amazing.

It's kind of awesome to see them achieve things and grow as people," said Jamie Cox.

They've planned a fundraising basketball game later this month against the Harlem Ambassadors.

They are a globetrotter like group of former college players who travel the country helping groups raise money.

They play a local team.

So they might even lose.

This is part one of the fundraising effort. They'll need $60,000 to build the house. They know what success feels like and looks like; they built their first house last year.

They provided some photographs of the first project.

"It was good to see everybody work together on something like this, volunteer Michael Van Camp said.

What they need now are more sponsors, and a gymnasium full of fans who'd like to be entertained, and enjoy some of the satisfaction these young men feel being part of something bigger than themselves.

The big game is January 30th in the Charles Page High School Gym in Sand Springs.

You can get tickets and other information through Habitat for Humanity, and there are even a limited number of spots available to play in the game. 

Contact Jamie Cox at 592-4224 ext. 205 or send an email to jcox@habitat-tulsa.org for tickets or game information.