Wahine to hold sneaker drive

The Rainbow Wahine basketball team’s seniors will be recognized for their contributions to the program after tonight’s regular-season finale against Cal Poly at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The Wahine are also using the occasion to give back to the community.

The program’s is holding its Youth Outreach Sneaker Drive for the second straight year. Fans are encouraged to bring new or gently used shoes to be donated to Youth Outreach, which assists homeless youth.

“It’s such an important cause for two reasons. It puts shoes on homeless kids’ feet and it also makes them feel a part of society and when you’re homeless you don’t feel part of society,” UH coach Laura Beeman said.

Several UH players have volunteered or interned at Youth Outreach over the past two years, including seniors Destiny King, Marissa Wimbley and Kalei Adolpho and junior Briana Harris.

“It means a lot,” said King, who interned at YO last summer, “because I know how much they need it, how much they utilize it, how much they appreciate it as well.”

While the sneaker drive is part of the promotion for tonight’s game, King said most of the work the program does with YO is “off the grid.”

Beeman said the tasks the players have helped with included, “going through donations, helping with laundry, cooking, cleaning.”

“They’ve been in that facility and seen what homelessness looks like on a very personal level. So this is very personal for these kids. … That is a huge commitment for these young women going there to volunteer their time.”

Along with Youth Outreach the players participate in various community service activities throughout the year.

“We’re really fortunate we get our education paid for … just really blessed,” Adolpho said. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget. You’re around a lot of other athletes and you’re in your own little bubble and you have practice and school. So being able to go out and just get outside of your bubble a little bit with community service, it puts life back in perspective. You really get to appreciate how blessed you are.”

King said giving back to the community is a priority for the players “because of how much they give to us.”

“They’ve come to games that we’ve lost and they’ve come to games that we didn’t play well and we didn’t represent as much as they want us to. It’s something that we appreciate as a team to give back to our community.”

Tip-off for the “white out” game between UH (18-10, 11-4 Big West) and Cal Poly (14-14, 7-8) is set for 7 p.m.