Testimonials:
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Heather Bizon <hbizon@ppacri.org>
Date: Fri, Jul 21, 2023 at 10:21 AM
Subject: RE: Summer Sports Camp
To: Jamie LaRose <JLaRose@fgschools.com>
Thanks Jamie, pictures look like everyone had a blast! Just wanted to send some positive feedback about your sports camp! This was our first summer and both kids came home excited to share how their day was and very tired! I love that! Thank you for giving Cece the opportunity to volunteer, she was thrilled to help out. She is also much more interested in basketball now and wants to get better at it – I think she’d be great at basketball but I can’t ever get her to try it. Also, my youngest daughter Jenny was hesitant because “it was only ½ day of soccer and she doesn’t like the other sports” and she is now telling me that she really likes volleyball and might want to try rec basketball again! So mission accomplished – you introduced at least 2 kids, probably many more, to new sports and caught their interest! The camp appeared well organized at drop off and was packed with all-day fun, not an easy accomplishment by any means! Well done!
Heather
IN THE NEWS:
By KAYLA PANU Valley Breeze & Observer Sports Writer - Aug 3, 2023
GLOCESTER – The Foster-Glocester Summer Hoops Camp, which has been around since 1978 and is now run by Ponaganset Middle School teacher Jamie LaRose, will run next week from Monday through Friday.
Utilizing both the Ponaganset High School and Middle School gymnasiums, this co-ed camp is for anyone entering grades 1-9. It costs $150 and takes place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day. LaRose said that on Monday, they will have a registration table set up at 8:30 a.m. for walk-ins and won’t turn any prospective campers away.
“Typically, we have 10 teams of nine broken up by age and ability,” said LaRose, who is a physical education and health teacher. “We have skill development stations in the morning, then team game play, group instruction, and strategy, and we finish the day with team competitions.”
LaRose grew up in Foster and attended both the middle and high schools. In the 1990s, while attending middle school, LaRose attended the Summer Hoops Camp, which was run by Vincent Spermulli, a former PMS teacher and boys’ basketball coach. She also came back the camp as a junior counselor while attending high school.
Using the camp as a feeder program into the high school basketball teams, Ponaganset became a powerhouse in girls’ basketball in the 1990s, and LaRose played for the Chieftains during their run of six straight state titles from 1993-98.
LaRose later went away to college, but returning home on summer vacation, at the age of 19, Spermulli offered her a job as a coach, and that’s when she started to fall in love with her community and coaching.
“I changed my major from math to Phys Ed,” she said. “My mom (Kathleen Hazard) did that; she was a Phys Ed teacher at the high school (for over 35 years).”
After graduating college in 2003, LaRose returned to her stomping grounds, getting a teaching job at Ponaganset Middle School, as well as coaching basketball there.
Spermulli eventually passed the Hoops Camp down to his children, and when the Spermullis retired, LaRose, along with Ponaganset High head girls’ basketball coach Gary Martinelli, and the current dean of PHS, Mike Calenda, took over.
“We wanted to keep it going and keep it affordable,” LaRose said of the camp. “We also wanted to keep the legacy of Ponaganset basketball and keep the kids playing together from grade 1 to grade 12.”
Ponaganset alumni, as well as current high school students, enjoy being a part of the camp as well. LaRose said that the alumni they’ve had to speak and coach include Chandler Williams, Connor Morgan, and Julia Stockwell.
Another alum, who now works with LaRose running the Hoops Camp, is Todd French, who works with the younger kids.
Martinelli and Calenda decided to step down in 2020, but the year before that, LaRose began another camp, this Summer Sports Camp, for students entering the 1st through 7th grades.
This year’s camp, which ran from July 17-21, had just about 70 campers who got to experience different sports, from lacrosse to field hockey and volleyball, LaRose noted. They used both the indoor and outdoor facilities at the high school and middle school.
Running this camp with her is Ponaganset Middle School teacher Maryhelen Khoury, who was the Foster-Glocester Teacher of the Year.
For both camps, LaRose said she has Ponaganset High kids that help out, but she has a long waiting list full of volunteers, who can get credit for volunteering, get paid as well, and become certified to keep the kids safe.
Things got dicey during COVID as neither camp happened in 2020, but LaRose, who has two kids, said that she would do whatever it took to keep the camps alive and going. Even though Martinelli and Calenda stepped down from the Hoops Camp, LaRose brought it back in 2021, playing with masks and trying to utilize more outdoor space.
They usually have about 100 kids at Hoops Camp. On the first day, they set up on an outdoor court. LaRose said they do a lot of hand-eye coordination drills with water balloons and have freeze pops.
Last summer for the camp, LaRose had an unusual request, but has since run with it.
“A local community member who I did not know had seen my ads for the camp and reached out saying she wanted to sponsor a kid and, pay for them so they could play,” LaRose told The Breeze. “She had no specific kid in mind, but told me to pick one and she paid the $150 registration fee. I took a kid living with his grandmother, a 7th-grader who loves basketball. He was so grateful.”
Since then, LaRose has added sections on her website, one page for kids who want to apply for a scholarship, and another page for donors who want to sponsor a kid. As of now, she hasn’t seen any takers, but she said it was new on the website.
“I’m really grateful to Supt. Renee Palazzo for allowing us the use of the facilities (at the high school and the middle school to keep it local,” LaRose said.
For more information, to register, apply for a scholarship, or become a donor, visit https://sites.google.com/fgschools.com/summer-sports/home.