Can basketball save kids’ lives?

Think super fly basketball skills have nothing to do with helping kids in poverty? Think again! How Ridiculous is a group of four young guys from Perth who have racked up more than 300,000 YouTube hits with their amazing basketball shots — all to help children in need.

Brett Stanford, Derek Herron, Scott Gaunson and Kyle Nebel are members of Life Streams Christian Church in South Perth. Twelve months ago they got together and decided that they wanted to do something to raise awareness about the work of Compassion and raise money for their sponsored child. They stumbled across a YouTube clip of a group of guys from the United States who were using their basketball skills to promote a charity. And the boys thought, “Why not?”

“We all loved basketball and we weren’t too bad at it, so we thought maybe this is something that we can do,” Stanford says.

They started practicing for hours on end in each other’s backyards, and before long ‘How Ridiculous’ was formed. In October 2009 the group began posting clips of their shots on YouTube.

“Interest in the clips was slow at first, and then it just began snowballing. Now that the media have picked up on it, we have had interest coming in from everywhere”.

Since then How Ridiculous has featured on many news programs across the country and most recently broke the Guinness World Record for the highest basketball shot. They were also featured on Today Tonight as one of the top inspirations of 2010.

Doing their bit to help fight poverty

Even though the boys have suddenly found themselves balancing between unexpected fame, full-time work and uni assignments, they remain focused on their goal: to show people the impact Compassion is having on the lives of children in poverty around the world.

They are an inspiration to other young people that you don’t have to wait until you are an adult, or have heaps of money, before you can do your bit in the fight against poverty.

“God has given us all unique gifts and talents that we can use in creative ways. All we have to do is start thinking creatively and use the gifts that God has given us,” Stanford says.

“We can even begin by using our facebook status and tweets to start telling our friends about the 1 billion children who are affected by poverty every day.”

Check out the youtube clip of the guys in action above & start thinking about what you and your friends can do to use your skills for God’s glory.