Dear Abbey
How one mother is keeping her daughter’s memory alive
“I’m an obnoxious Raptors stan,” says Sidra Alam with a laugh. Fortunately, the law student from Mississauga has a legion of fellow fans with whom to share her passion: Raptors Twitter, one of the most engaged and active fanbases in the NBA.
Over the past decade, Alam has witnessed the thousands-strong #WeTheNorth Twitter community welcome new members by sharing their tweets and following them, and she feels supported every time someone checks in on her when she gripes about having an exam or a bad day. She has attended karaoke nights with Raptors fans and has even made a few close friends with whom she recently co-created the popular women-run NBA podcast Dishes and Dimes. “In the last few years, people have really found a sense of community there,” she says.
So when Alam read last fall that GTA food banks needed more supplies — and that some had seen demand increase by 200 per cent during the pandemic — she turned to her beloved community for help. “It’s a really kind community,” Alam says. “Yes, it’s online. But it’s very much a real community and they want to give back. I think they just needed an outlet.”
Alam gave them one. And they ran with it — the entire length of the court.
Alam originally hoped to raise a couple of thousand dollars from people she knew. But something special happened: people she hadn’t even met started spreading word of the fundraiser throughout Raptors Twitter, and support from popular figures such as Raptors broadcaster Leo Rautins and reporters Blake Murphy and William Lou put it over the $6,000 mark in just over 24 hours. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, what is going on?’” says Alam.
At the same time, Sean Woodley, the host of the Locked On Raptors podcast, got the idea to raffle off a Marc Gasol Raptors jersey to anyone who showed proof of donation, and others followed suit, raffling off Raptors memorabilia such as bobbleheads, books and mugs. “They were just so trusting of me and my execution, which was intimidating at first but it kept me in check because these people were going out on a limb to support my cause,” says Alam. One week in, the fundraiser total was topping $7,500, with people requesting that they extend the donation window through the weekend. “The moment that really stuck out to me was when somebody donated $5,” says Alam. “They wrote me a message and said: ‘This is all I have, but I really wanted to contribute.’” That, to Alam, meant more than anything.
In the end, Alam raised more than $10,000 in two weeks. She donated to Seva Food Bank in Mississauga, Knights Table in Brampton and Parkdale Community Food Bank, BlackFoodToronto and Toronto Food Not Bombs in Toronto, prioritizing areas and communities hit hardest by COVID. “I could say it made me feel good, but I feel like that’s an understatement. It just made me feel like I was doing something that I should have done a long time ago,” she says. “But I really don’t think it was me doing it — it was everybody doing it together.”