Troy Chartier, Swift Grid Ltd.
Troy Chartier has strong feelings about the idea of sports as a universal language. More specifically, soccer.
“I feel like soccer is auniversal language of the whole world,” Troy says. “No matter who you are, what language you speak, what income you have, you can play soccer.”
“Edmonton is home to so many newcomers and refugees, so many new people in the area [where] the first connection that they're gonna [make] in the neighborhood is through playing soccer. Especially when kids that are unfamiliar with the area come, and they have a soccer team to play with. I feel like that's one of the things where they can first feel at home.”
Not surprisingly, Troy, through his company, Swift Grid Ltd., a growing web infrastructure and consulting business, is a sponsor of Free Play for Kids. His wife was a teacher at McDougall Elementary School and coached for Free Footie. While she no longer works at that school, she and Troy kept tabs on Free Play, taking note of its growth over the last couple of years.
“The majority of our clients are locally based,” Troy explains, “So we definitely want to be there to support our community.”
“It's exciting to see that you have branched into lots of sports and food programs and how quickly you guys were able to pivot in the pandemic from providing sports to providing food and other services and whatever you guys can do.”
Troy played soccer, basketball, and rugby as a kid, and understands the positive effect that sports can have on children.
“To be able to communicate on the soccer field can help build language skills, team building skills, it really equips a lot of these kids with early childhood development that I think will become very effective later in their life. Sports provide that by being a fun activity for them to do. Something that actually encourages them to work hard and build their skills to compete, but also to make friends and to build bonds with people. Having payment walls that get in the way of that, that they can't play because they can't afford the gear… I think that's a barrier that needs to be broken. There needs to be community involvement regardless of who you are, especially for children.”
Troy hasn’t been able to make it out to a game yet, and with a new child on the way, he may not for a while. But he was able to come to Free Play’s jersey unveiling, and he hopes to both come out to some games and keep supporting the organization in the future.
When asked about his favourite moment during his sponsorship of Free Play, Troy remembers an impression we had at the jersey unveiling.
“The best moment I'll say is, seeing that you have the support of your community. That you have the support of Edmonton to make this organization great.”
Written by Stefan Salegio
