Essentia Health Makes Generous Donation to NYBA, Starks Academy

The partnership has been years in the making thanks to the work of Starks Academy found Dyami Starks, whose motto is giving local youth the opportunity to learn life skills through the lens of basketball. 

DULUTH, Minn. –  All year-round, the Northland Youth Basketball Alliance, along with Starks Academy, put on several fundraisers to help raise money for their various community programs. And on Monday, they got a very generous donation from a local organization.

Essential Health presented them with a check for $5,000 during a special event at the Encounter Youth Center.

The partnership has been years in the making thanks to the work of Starks Academy found Dyami Starks, whose motto is giving local youth the opportunity to learn life skills through the lens of basketball.

“If you’ve known him, he just appeals to everybody so he’s a really strong leader and he’s developed this growth of stakeholders around him to really move us farther along towards community inclusiveness and community health,” Essentia Health physician Michael Van Scoy said.

“This check allows us to get creative with what we want to do, we don’t have to worry about breaking even or finding our bottom line costs. Another goal we have is to offer programming to all kids, regardless of their financial or racial backgrounds so this check is going to allow us to offer low cost programming and also just folks whether they play basketball or not,” Starks added.

If you would also like to make a donation, head to the Northland Hoops website.