ASIAN CHANGEMAKERS: How Sunny Minhas cultivates excellence by empowering student-athletes

I honestly feel like giving back time is something that we all have access to and volunteer Coaching and and being there on a daily basis and being that stable presence, I feel like it’s something that can be helpful. But giving back genuine time, being able to give back those hours over the years, is something that I’ve been fortunate enough to do. My name is Sunny Minhas, born and raised in Calgary. I’m a high school social studies teacher and I coach a lot of basketball. Basketball was my my first love growing up. I loved watching it. I loved playing it. It’s just been something that’s given me a lot. I didn’t necessarily know what it was giving me in regards to the life skills and the confidence, the discipline, the the ability to to commit to something and the highs and lows of it. But now looking back and and that’s why I feel like sport is so important as an Asian change maker, I’m definitely someone that’s had the opportunity to help the Northeast community and and be a part of some initiatives that have had a positive impact on students and on families, coaching and teaching. So I feel like those those things I guess making an Asian change maker, but that’s hard for me to answer. I just hope that I have a positive influence on the youth. I feel like coaching, teaching this age group, being in the northeast of Calgary, I’m in a unique position where I can have a positive influence on a younger generation. I was fortunate enough to be a part of starting a scholarship at Lester B Pearson High School under like the unfortunate events of Man Meet Singh Boulder with his family. So we were able to hand out, we’re close to 50 scholarships for for youth that can’t afford to play sports. At Pearson. We’re looking for student athletes that excel in the classroom but also want to be involved in playing sports where finances are a barrier. In our first year we raised over $20,000 and it’s been something that we’ve been continuing to build on since 2016. We’ve handed out eight scholarships a year and we’re going to be handing out another eight in June. I think having an Asian heritage definitely allows me to connect with the students and the athletes. Having a similar background, having an understanding of what home life might be, I feel like the knowledge I have in that aspect definitely at least creates like that initial relationship or understanding. I feel somewhat of a responsibility, that knowledge where you know I can help put them in positions to be successful. We paired up with a Tim Horton’s and they have been donating breakfast and lunch for our senior boys basketball. So anytime we have morning practice it usually starts at 7:00 AM and a lot of our athletes either aren’t eating breakfast or aren’t having lunch or proper nutrition. And basically the thought process was trying to provide equality amongst some of our our athletes compared to other athletes in the city. We find that, you know, we face a lot of challenges that maybe some other schools and some other areas might not necessarily face finances, food being one of them. So it’s just about levelling the playing field. We do our best to try and provide our athletes, our students with the exact same experience they would get regardless of what school they’re at, regardless of what community they grew up in. We’ve had a lot of success so hopefully it’s translating to maybe some encore success, but we just know like when we bring food and how quickly the food goes, so we just hope it makes a difference. I just enjoy coming here every day and the relationships you build with you know, the students and and the athletes and just hoping I can just do my job well and be that kind of positive impact and and role model on a day-to-day basis. Hi, my name is Sunny Minhas and I’m CBC Calgary’s Asian Change Maker.