Basketball for Kids returns, hooping for a'great cause

Two days of sports where competitiveness is put at the service of those who need it most. This is Basket for Kids, the event – sponsored by FIP Lombardy, Lombardy Region, Metropolitan City of Milan, Municipality of Milan and included in the Civil Week – events that on Saturday, May 10 and Sunday, May 11 return, for the fourth consecutive year, in the center of Piazza Tre Torri in CityLife, with the aim of raising funds for the Maria Letizia Verga ETS Foundation.

If the 2024 edition closed by raising €21,000 thanks to the participation of more than 1,000 U19 basketball players, 56 teams and more than 14,750 baskets made, this year the goal is to be able to involve more and more sportsmen and fans, so as to break the record of baskets.
Participating is simple, free and involves two modes: team or single players. From 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, there will be available – for members and all passers-by – two courts where single or team competitions will alternate, non-contact, with shooting contests to make as many baskets as possible and raise the fundraising bar by one euro at each center. Also new this year is the entry of some Baskin teams, Inclusive Basketball, which allows players with reduced mobility to have fun together with able-bodied teammates (and opponents).

Throughout the weekend, there will also be plenty of room for entertainment with dunking lessons from the dynamic two of acrobatic basketballers Space Jumpers, with a performance by the all-female dance crew B.Crew, to DJ sets with special guests. Finally, there will be no shortage of appearances by friends of the Committee: from well-known faces from music and entertainment to those from sports and, in particular, basketball, thanks in part to the support of the Milanese basketball world: EA7 Emporio Armani Milano, Urania Basket Milano, Sanga Milano, GEAS and Basket Femminile Milano.

All proceeds from the two-day event will be donated to the Foundation’s Sport Therapy project, which was established in 2017 with the aim of demonstrating that consistent and personalized precision training, carried out from the beginning of cancer treatment, can improve resilience in children and young people with oncohematological diseases. Through targeted physical activity administered by the sports physician in collaboration with the hemato-oncologist pediatrician, in fact, it is possible to promote the full recovery of these young patients, averting the high danger of chronic diseases related to sedentariness and allowing them to better reintegrate, once cured, into their home community.

To experience firsthand the work that Dr. Lanfranconi – head of the project – and her team carry out every day at the Maria Letizia Verga Center in Monza, an area will be set up inside City Life Shopping District where children and young people, aged 5 to 18, will be able to try the rehabilitation techniques typical of Sport Therapy, thanks to sessions of bike no pedal, dance and animal flow.
The appointment to mark in your agenda is for May 10 and 11 with Basket for Kids, remembering that only “those who put themselves on the line for a good cause, never lose.”