Four-Square to Fundraise for Kolkata

For the past five years, a collection of young adults from Blueprint Church in Central Wellington have been hosting handball (foursquare) on the corner of Cuba and Manners Streets. Every Wednesday night from 9.30-11pm, anyone and everyone is welcome. “We wanted to be present to our community, doing mission in a really inclusive way” says Handball leader Rebecca Sim. 

When Handball first started nobody turned up for almost 18 months, but Rebecca says that they believed “if we stuck with it long enough, people would start turning up.” She was right. Today, a collection of between 20 and 30 people, both friends and strangers, turn up to play each week. “We have a lot of conversations with people who just come to watch as well, this is just as important.” During lockdown, most of the handball crowd moved online for other games via Zoom. 

Just after lockdown, one of the handball regulars said, “I think I could play handball all night”, inspiring the creative fundraiser idea. Esmé and Hana from the handball team remembered the Anglican Diocese’s Global Response to Covid-19, and elected to organise 24 hours of handball to raise money for our friends in Kolkata running freedom businesses. 

The event is going ahead overnight from 11am Saturday the 18th of July to 11am Sunday, on the corner of Cuba and Manners Street. There are a whole host of different ways to contribute. The handball team need more players to sign up on the time sheet, donations on their givealittle page, as well volunteers to support in hosting the event.  

See the Facebook event here.