Name: Ivy Van Blerkom

Social Justice Group: Access, Equity and Inequity in Youth Sports

Date of Fieldwork: January 19, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Steady Buckets

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

Last Thursday, January 19th, 2023, my group met with Coach Macky. Coach Macky is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Steady Buckets in downtown New York City. Coach Macky told us about how he founded Steady Buckets. He founded Steady Buckets because he felt there needed to be a free sports program that was high quality. Coach Macky started Steady Buckets after working at various Basketball programs in the city. Steady Buckets was originally located at the Chinatown Y.

Over Covid, Steady Buckets had to switch to be online. Directly before Covid, Steady Buckets reached its peak of participants. Over Covid, Steady Buckets online workouts became very popular as they were available at any point throughout the day and kids who had participated in the in-person version of Steady Buckets, spread the word about the workouts. Coach Macky talked about how proud he was that he never really had to advertise it, it advertised itself. Being a high quality, free basketball program in downtown Manhattan, Coach Macky knew that the fact it was free meant it would get the attention it deserved and that people would find out about the quality if they decided to participate in it.