After two months of planning, meetings, and hopes to make a change in the community, Alvin Pham, junior, and Patrick True, sophomore, were successful in officially starting up their own student-run basketball club.

“So far we have been getting a good turnout of people, around 80 in total,” Pham said. “Our club has been able to run scrimmages and raise interest for the upcoming Charity Bash Tournament. Our goal is to raise $500 by the end of the year, which we both believe we can accomplish.”

The club will be hosting a basketball tournament during the week of Charity Bash to raise money for the Alexander Leigh Center for Autism.

“When Patrick and I first started talking about the club, we didn’t expect that we would get a lot of people interested in the organizing aspect,” Pham said.

Not only can club members participate by playing in the scrimmage games and tournaments, but other club members get involved in the organizing and advertising for the club.

“We have sold T-shirts to raise money and get the club going,” Pham said. “At the meetings we have started giving certain tasks to groups of organizers such as making flyers and sign-up sheets. During scrimmages we made ten teams and have had the teams play each other.”

The club has been able to reserve court space in the Field House on certain Sunday afternoons. This allows the teams to scrimmage against each other and start practicing for the upcoming Charity Bash tournament. Pham and True, presidents of the club, hope to use the money from the t-shirt sales to go toward prizes and raffles that can be won during the charity bash tournament.

“We have gotten a ton of positive feedback,” True said, “but also some things that we need to fix or improve, so we are constantly adapting to make Ball Gives Life as good as it can be.”