DENVER — Two Smoky Hill High School hoopers are now humanitarians. Returning from a weeklong mission in Africa by way of their club team, the Mountain Stars.
"We raised a whole bunch of money and then we collected like clothes shoes to give out to like kids in a local village out there.," junior Damian Dirden said. "And then we also helped like gather materials to build desks and help build classrooms."
The initiative is called Koins for Kenya where they even dug pits for toilets and created water wells.
"Just even just playing with the kids stuff like that just that's where I had the most fun as we played," sophomore Carter Basquez said.
Eighteen hours is how long it took from Denver to Kenya, but to these student-athletes seeing the promise land was so worth it.
"It just it made me so much more grateful," Dirden said. "I think one for what I have and also just grateful to be in the position to be able I can help people that's like the biggest thing I took away from it."
Philanthropy aside, the Mountain Stars were also there to hoop in an international tournament.
“We played against the team from South Sudan, the Congo and then we played against one like the Kenyan local teams and it was it was really fun we we want all our games we ended up winning it all and so it's it's just crazy seeing didn't even see and how they play how they treat each other how much it meant to them just even play against people from like America it was it was it was insane," Basquez said.
Oh, the places sports can take you.
“It definitely just showed me how far basketball can just like take you just like outside of just playing games and making shots and stuff like that and just like actually using it to like help other people and change other people's lives because it definitely opened like my eyes a lot," Basquez said.
And once the offseason ends, Dirden and Basquez will trade their Mountain Stars jerseys back in for the Smoky Hill High School uniforms, looking to finish what they started.
"There's only one there's only one more to go," they agreed. "We're not the champion. We better not listen to championship we're not gonna lose there."
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