Local high school basketball players help feed community’s needy

Monday at Providence Day School, some of the nation’s top high school basketball players will play in the annual Hoodies House Of Hope tournament.

Sunday afternoon, players from Long Island (NY) Lutheran, Northside Christian and Providence Day came to the Greenville Neighborhood Rec Center in west Charlotte for a community-wide feeding event. This was the fourth year Hoodies House has sponsored it.

Panthers’ mascot Sir Purr attended along with Hornets mascot Hugo.

More than 500 people were fed Sunday. Sponsors helped pay for the food along with proceeds from the tournament.

“It’s just for people who are in need of meal around the holidays,” said tournament organizer Jeff Hood. “But it’s also for everybody. We’ve had a young lady come from Rock Hill and her husband had passed away and she heard about it and she was lonely during holidays and wanting to get out of the house and experience being around other people.”

Hood’s event isn’t the only area high school basketball tournament with ambitions to give back. Former West Charlotte basketball player Thad Bonapart, a two-time Charlotte Observer player of the year, is sponsoring the first Queen City Classic at Vance High. He hopes to raise $20,000 for cancer research.

Hood said it’s important for his Hoodies House organzation to give back.

“You grew up a certain way and through some somewhat unfortunate situations,” Hood said, “and you have a little bit of success, and to be able to give that back does my heart a lot of good. Just to have this platform to help others when others did these types of things me and my family when we were growing up in New York.”

This story was originally published December 27, 2015 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Local high school basketball players help feed community’s needy."