(Alberta RCMP/ supplied)

By rdnewsNOW staff

equipment access

Alberta RCMP partners with Sport Central to provide all kids with access to sports

May 27, 2025 | 1:23 PM

The Alberta RCMP have announced a partnership with Sport Central, an Alberta charity that provides gently used sports equipment to kids in families with financial struggles.

After receiving the equipment, Sport Central repairs, refurbishes, and redistributes the equipment to those who need it from Red Deer to northern Alberta.

From last year until now, several RCMP detachments including St. Albert, Wetaskiwin, Parkland, Chateh, High Level, and Peace River distributed over 2,600 items of sports equipment to not only individual kids but to community leagues and schools.

This includes equipment for hockey, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, football, rugby, bicycling and tennis. The RCMP also donates seized bikes that go unclaimed at local detachments.

“When youth are engaged in healthy, structured activities, their well-being, and the well-being of the entire community is improved. In turn, communities are more connected and criminality is reduced,” says Supt. Mike McCauley, Officer in Charge of Crime Reduction. “Over time, this creates a stronger, safer Alberta for everyone. That’s why we believe every child deserves the chance to play. And with Sport Central, we’re helping make that a reality.”

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(Alberta RCMP/ supplied)

Sport Central will also be providing ball kits to frontline Alberta RCMP officers, which contains a variety of deflated sports balls along with a pump that officers can keep in their police vehicles to then distribute the equipment to children in the communities they serve.

This May, 126 ball kits were distributed across 32 Alberta RCMP detachments. In total 1,134 balls will be handed out to kids.

“At Sport Central there is a long and positive history working informally with the RCMP, but to be able to formalize and strengthen this partnership is only going to increase the connection to communities for both Sport Central and the RCMP,” says Janna Tominuk, Sport Central Executive Director. “The image of a Mountie handing an ecstatic child sports equipment to help enrich their day to day life, sums up this winning partnership.”