It was easy to see the pride of accomplishment in students from Terry Fox Public School on Thursday, June 12, 2025.
Grade 6/7 teacher Mark Mitro came up with the idea of repairing and restoring the three outdoor basketball nets in the schools Fix-It Club.
Mitro said the club is about fixing and problem solving with different items and taking a “hands-on” approach. The day-to-day is fixing video games and different small items. The big project to close out the year was different.
Partnering with ArcLight Customs in Roseneath, SubZero Sandblasting in Colborne and BASF in Toronto the unveiling of the nets was at the schools Fun Fair on Thursday.
Mitro said the school is extremely grateful to the companies for making this project possible and letting students experience it all for free.
The hoops were welded for new chains to be put on and the boards were sandblasted and taken to Toronto to be painted by professionals in the industry with 16 of the students taking part spray painting the backboards.
“We have beautiful basketball nets to put back up in our school yard for all of us to benefit from.”
The students brought one of the nets out for a photo for Today’s Northumberland before the unveiling ceremony and it was easy to see the pride they took in their work.
“I try to back-up and let the students do all their own stuff. So they jumped into the project, and use YouTube and use YouTube for a positive and take the Club on by themselves.”
“With hands-on, they’re more engaged, we are more engaged and everyone is happy.”
The names of the students were on the back of the backboard and on the front was the Terry Fox P.S. logo.
The project was kept well under wraps for the rest of the school with the three nets/backboards carefully stored in the Fix-It Club room.
The unveiling took place at 5:30 p.m. and it only took a few seconds before the first basketball went into the net.
The students are finalizing their website so stay tuned for the future projects.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
