Stephania Ergemlidze is using basketball to bring people together in Philadelphia and it's working.
On Tuesday, Stephania brought a portable basketball around the city. The result? Everyone began playing, cops and protestors, black and white.
This tweet went viral.
Khalil Gardner is a part of a group dragging a basketball hoop around center city trying to get people to play to break the tension. pic.twitter.com/EA4Cwazpne
— Nina Feldman (@ncannellf) June 2, 2020To all Khalil's fans, the mastermind behind this project is Stephania Ergemlidze. I watched her school dude after dude one-on-one. Sorry I am just now giving her credit where credit's due, just got home after a long one out there. pic.twitter.com/XLZomQupid
— Nina Feldman (@ncannellf) June 3, 2020Here is the some of the video.
A post shared by Stephania Ergemlidze (@stephaniae) on Jun 3, 2020 at 6:33am PDT
"The main goal was to get the police and protestors working together and playing together which I am happy to say we saw glimpses of today!" she wrote on her "Balling For Justice" GoFundMe Page. "I don't know if what I'm doing is the answer, but I'm hoping it can at least do some kind of good for my brothers and sisters of the POC community as well as the philly community as a whole."
Stephania is hoping to spread the basketball movement to other cities, like Baltimore.
"I would like to continue to spread this message outside of philly as well," she wrote. "Was hoping to ask you all for help in funding our travels to other cities. With $2000 we could easily rent an suv and head down to dc, Baltimore, and newark staying in each city one day/night. And any leftover money, we would donate to other BML causes."
You can donate to her basketball movement here.
