ARKANSAS, USA — For a little over a year, a local nonprofit called Equipped has been making a huge difference in young athletes' lives.
"We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing the essential sports equipment, items for student-athletes in Northwest Arkansas, the ones that aren't provided by the school and that generally the students can't afford," Equipped Executive Director Joel Brown said.
While schools usually provide uniforms, there are some items they don't provide. That's where Equipped comes in.
"When you're a basketball player, you get your jersey and your shorts, maybe a shooting shirt and like practice gear provided to you, but items like shoes and socks, compression shorts, compression shirt, a sports bra, those are the items that you have to get yourself," Brown said. "Those are the items that we want to make sure that we're able to help provide for kids."
Since last July, they've helped over a hundred student-athletes in both winter and spring sports.
"We had 15 schools that we were able to partner with to provide equipment, and we had 134 student-athletes we were able to get equipment to in that time," Brown said.
Brown said he began this organization because he used to be in the students' shoes.
"I was one of those kids that needed that help when I was younger, and so I always knew about it because I lived it myself," he said. "As a coach, when I was in Springfield, Missouri, I had some student-athletes that really needed help, where I remembered scrambling around trying to find parents or some other business that might be able to help these kids."
As Equipped continues its mission, Brown said the stories of helping local children are what inspires him to keep going.
"I remember going to talk to a junior high girls basketball coach, and we were going to deliver the equipment that we had gotten for that season. It was one of our first deliveries," Brown said. "He was just so excited. He's like, 'This is going to be the first time my player is going to be able to stop where she anticipated because her shoes had no traction on them, and she had to calculate sliding into her stopping."
Brown said it doesn't matter what school it is, there is always someone who needs help.
"There are always areas for kids that need help," he said. "Every school has it."
Equipped is looking to expand to work with every school across Washington County and Benton County.
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