There is nothing like playing ping pong before work or school.
Chantelle Johnson met me at the East Lynn Park table one morning this week. She’s the captain of Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute’s softball team, so she knows how to hit a ball. She also makes the cutest “who” sound every time the wind joins the game and snatches the ball away. It’s better than coffee.
Chantelle is the inaugural DECA Young Leaders Scholarship winner. She cried when she read the email telling her she had won, she told me as we played. The scholarship is for $2,000 — part raised by DECA in the upcoming Table Tennis for Tuition tournament, and the other part kicked in by Toronto Community Housing.
The money will help cover her first term’s tuition at Humber College next year, where Chantelle’s been accepted in the Fashion Business Management program. That’s a big deal, because she doesn’t come from money.
But the other big deal is the vote of confidence in her. Chantelle was diagnosed with a speech impediment as a kid, and that affects her literacy skills. She struggles to write. She was in the special education stream, getting As, until Grade 11. Then, she decided to try academic-stream courses so she could apply for university. She wants to succeed in life. Her dream is to launch a company that designs and sells elegant clothes for plus-size women at affordable prices. Right now, she says, “clothes are either very nice and very expensive, or affordable and not so nice.”
Now, we launched the scholarship this year to award a local kid from a low-income family for her or his community activism, not academic performance. That’s why we called it the Young Leaders Scholarship.
Chantelle more than fits the bill. She runs the Back-to-School Community Barbeque for her Lumsden Ave. building every summer, getting around 100 backpacks for kids in Toronto Community Housing.
She’s vice president of her school’s student council. She’s the head of the Black Student Association too. All this, she does, while working part-time at a clothing store on weekends and Thursday evenings.
We are impressed.
She can’t compete in DECA’s Table Tennis for Tuition Tournament because she has her Grade 12 exams next week. But she plans on coming to watch the finals on Thursday, June 23. She has a message for you, which she delivered to me while giggling: “It would be lovely if you would play ping pong, not only because it’s fun, but also because it will raise money for a good cause — my tuition costs.”
Go here to register. The entry fee is only $20 for adult players and $10 for teenagers, aged 13-19, and every dollar will go to Chantelle’s tuition. You need a team of two, and you will play against neighboring teams one evening next week — either Tuesday, June 14 or Thursday, June 16. (You can request one or the other from our brilliant tournament captain Corey Diamond, after you’ve registered).
If you beat all the teams there, then you’ll go onto the finals the following evening of Thursday, June 23 where we will crown the DECA Ping Pong Masters with trophies and super duper prizes, lovingly donated by some of our local businesses, including: LEN, Face to Face Games and Gerrard Pizza . (Thank you all!)
Find all the information, rules and details you need on our tournament registration page.
Bring on your game, Danforth East. Let’s help send Chantelle to college!
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