Dale Boyd
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Spirit of the Game is leaving its legacy with its last act by doing the thing the Osoyoos non-profit organization is best known for: helping kids have fun.
A combination of factors led to the decision to wind down operations for the sports-based non-profit.
“I had left the community now for almost a couple of years, it’s more challenging to fundraise, organized sports are in question for the foreseeable future. It just made sense to wind things down now and focus on the leadership conferences and be able to put together a legacy project,” founder Mike Campol said.
Campol founded Spirit of the Game in 2013 and with the help of a strong board of directors and the support of community members helped kids from over 100 underprivileged families pay league and equipment fees for sports. The society also helped out with various projects helping kids in the community over the years, including a donation to help build the playground surface at the Osoyoos Child Care Centre.
Campol announced the organization is donating $9,500 towards child accessibility projects in local parks at the Town of Osoyoos’ Oct. 5 regular meeting.
“I’m also thankful for the volunteering from the community, the board of the directors we had from the community and the support we had from businesses, residents and the town itself,” Campol said. “Bittersweet for me. I’m really excited we get to see a legacy project that will have an impact for years and years to come. That makes me happy but at the same time kind of sad to see Spirit of the Game wind down.”
Also at Monday’s council meeting, Kevin Primeau made a donation of $1,500 to the Spirit of the Game legacy project through the Primeau Properties Kids Matter Youth Foundation. The donation was originally earmarked for Spirit of the Game, so Primeau decided to pay it forward to the accessibility projects Campol was seeking to fund.
“We’re in discussions, now that Spirit of the Game is winding down, we may team up with a couple of their board members have them join us. We’re just starting up and they are kind of winding down,” Primeau said. “We will be all local focus as well. Similar programs basically all focusing on kids.”
Campol asked the town to come up with an additional $1,000 for a total of $12,000 in donations to complete two accessibility projects at Kinsmen Park and Lion’s Park.
The Spirit of Leadership events are still going ahead, Campol said. The events connect kids with leaders in sport and community, but there are no leadership events planned for the time being.
“Normally this is the time of year when we would have them, but considering the circumstances now we have some challenges for sure, so I don’t think we’ll see one this year,” Campol said.
Campol is happy to leave a legacy which will help kid have fun for years to come, and is hopeful others in the community will step up to fill the void.
“It’s really bittersweet for me. I left the town just shy of two years ago and this project was always incredibly meaningful for me, this non-profit. We were able to do some great things with people in the community,” Campol said. “It’s sad for me, but I’m hopeful that someone like Kevin Primeau with his charity can step in and fill that void.”
