Raised in the St Ignatius Parish the good & caring nuns at St. Iggy’s, Sisters of the Holy Names, treated us as family! We were not only given free school supplies on the first day of school but they would sneak us each a small glass bottle of chocolate milk when we lunched in the gym! And many of them rolled up their floor length outfits (wore habits) …just below knees…and played with us! And were we surprised just how athletic some of these nuns were! And our formation began right there at Iggys, with the good & caring sisters watching over us and being kind & compassionate in their CHRIST like ways..not concerned that the Robbies did not have money…and though many others considered us to be poor, you would not know it from us and the way we lived, loved, and played! And though it began with these sisters, it carried through to the community centres where there was always a kind soul that would look at our brood and then say to the centre board… ” JUST LET THEM PLAY!” And we did! All day…every day!
Waking up on a Saturday morning we headed to the fields with bats, balls, gloves, soccer balls and footballs…not knowing what fields or diamonds would be open! And then we picked teams from amongst our own brothers!!! Were there some arguments…testy pushing & shoving? …Yes …and yes, but we never stopped playing! And though I am completely bias, us brothers became damn good athletes and for each…sports & play …played a huge role growing up. And depending upon how many brothers were available, that determined what sport or games we would play. And inventing new games was part of the appeal. You ever play ‘hot box’? When we only had 3 or 4 brothers ..hot box was one of our fav games! That’s similar to trying to steal bases in baseball! But we would use trees or poles as our bases with teams of two getting three outs to see how many runs they could get! One run was leaving a tree and reaching the other tree without getting tagged out by the other team (one player at each tree with their gloves!) Man oh man, we loved that game and talk about developing skills! Throwing, faking throws…running…agility…balance…diving! Biggest challenge was keeping score! LOL~
I often share within my talks to never forget where you came from! Everyone has a story! A past! Never forget the kindness given or encouragement as well! The JUST LET THEM PLAY PROGRAM will never ever be able to repay all those that cared for me, and our family. But we can certainly try! And we are welcoming many kids and many families…to PLAY! When I served as Recreation Supervisor at an inner city centre, the Broadway Optimist CC in 1974, I was pleased to convince the centre executive board to waive fees for area youths and JUST LET THEM PLAY….rather than be on the streets!
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Our City of Winnipeg is increasing in population beyond expectations and our Province as well! Bedroom communities are welcoming new immigrants too. And what we see is so many of these newcomers being unable to afford their kids to be able ‘to pay to play’ in the more costly & structured sports. And Winnipeg is reknown for it’s ‘united nations’ make up! One of the schools that we offered soccer drop ins was Harrow Elementary that had 160 students from over 40 countries! Simply amazing! But now I know so many unique and lovely first names! LOL… And when I saw the smiles on the kids faces when they were lined up to pick out their cleats…it was simply PRICELESS and yes I had misty eyes! And when we were wrapping up play that first day of the drop in at Harrow School, with my daughter and 17 year old grand daughter Mila handing out treats to the kids with their parents watching, I noticed all the kids sitting down on the grass to take off their soccer cleats to put back in the boxes!
I spoke loudly saying.. “Thanks for playing today. And I need to ask all of you for a
special favour. Seeing that we will be playing again & again…and I don’t have the room in my home to keep all of these soccer shoes, would you please just keep them and use them! They are now yours!” Many of the kids looked towards their parents and with the parents smiling & nodding back..the kids excitedly put their cleats together, holding onto them pretty tightly! I wish those caring souls of decades past that let us Robertsons JUST PLAY…would have been present to witness what their ‘caring & giving’ was now doing! Think of them often!
Here is a short 50 second clip of two of our teams being treated like the pros! Entering the hockey rink and proudly saying their names and ages! They will never forget it…nor will I while watching and smiling~
Another cute story! With our JUST LET THEM PLAY program in full swing at the Lord Roberts lower Fort Rouge centre, we began with a dozen kids about 4 winters back but by season’s end we would have over 60+ out on the rinks…and yes some parents too! One day last winter a young boy, say around 8 or 9 ..approached me while I was putting the net pegs on before the youth games were to begin. Shyly he asked me if it was expensive to be able to play! I said “Very expensive! You need to have a big heart! ” As he turned and walked away.. I said “Son, come here please.” I took a black felt marker from my pocket ..bent down in a baseball catcher’s stance and pointed to the side rink boards and said..”See those big hearts on the boards? Take this marker and go put your name on one of the blank hearts! Then I will go get you a pair of spongee shoes & a stick and you can play!” The little guy did not walk over to the hearts…HE RAN! And how did you think I felt while watching him sign HIS HEART! We also embedded 2nd hearts into the ice for each youth, volunteers, also hearts on Valentines for every girl in our adult leagues!