While the Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal Tournament begins next week, so will the “We Belong Here,” a youth leadership and basketball camp.
Damen Bell-Holter, Sealaska’s Director of Community Youth Programming, will impart basketball skills Monday and Tuesday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., at Thunder Mountain High School. Tonia Hall will give a comedy show on Monday night at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall. Hall has been a full-time comedian for the past four years while raising two children.
“We aim to develop leadership through sports, advocacy, art and culture,” the signup sheet wrote.
Motivational speakers and wellness coaches Jesse Lebeau, Thosh Collins and Chelsey Luger will be helping out.
Bell-Holter grew up in Hydaburg where his dreams of playing basketball in the NBA first percolated. Those dreams realized in 2013 when Bell-Holter — then one of the most dominant big men to ever come out of Oral Roberts University with career totals exceeding 1,000 points and 750 rebounds — received a tryout with the Boston Celtics. Bell-Holter was cut by Boston but found a home overseas playing in Turkish, Finnish and Italian professional leagues.
The camp is sponsored by Sealaska, AWARE, Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, SEARHC, Tlingit & Haida Central Council and the Zach Gordon Youth Center.
Applications for camp can be found online at sealaska.com. For more information, contact Damen Bell-Holter at 586-9109 or damen.bell@sealaska.com.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
Young basketball player Rolando Felipe, center, practices a “triple threat” position while attending Damen Bell-Holter’s basketball camp at Floyd Dryden Middle School last March. (Konrad Frank | For the Juneau Empire)