HELENA — Roughly 50 kindergarten-through-fourth graders participated in the first Shodair Children’s Hospital Thunder on the Court skills camp Friday, working on their dribbling, passing and shooting.
Helping lead the skills camp was Helena Capital High boys head coach Guy Almquist. Almquist appeared as a representative of the Bruins and of camp sponsor First Interstate Bank, where Almquist is an employee.
“I’m here to help out Shodair,” Almquist said. “(This is) a great community event that they’re here putting on. If we can do anything to get kids involved and have them be active and have some fun, we’re willing to do it.”
The camp, free and open to the public, ran across two sessions – one for kids in grades K-4 and one for kids in grades 5-8.
“We want to spread the game of basketball and the love that we have for it,” said Almquist. “And [we] hope people get involved at a very young age.”
Also helping lead the camp were several Carroll College men’s and women’s basketball players, and Carroll men’s coach Dan Pearson.
“It’s a good opportunity for us to come out and share the game of basketball with people,” said Pearson. “It’s great to conjoin with Shodair. All the stuff that they do is really incredible, so for us we’re really privileged just to take part in that.”
And Pearson said giving back to the community on days like Friday morning is just part of being a Carroll College Fighting Saint.
“It’s not pulling teeth because the type of guys that we recruit actually really care about the servant leadership model that we really want to espouse here at Carroll College,” said Pearson. “And so, when we go and recruit guys, that is something that we very specifically go and look at.”
