A few years ago, Jess Markt, a Brooklyn-based paraplegic and wheelchair basketball player for the New York Rollin’ Knicks, answered an open call for an experienced American player to teach the game of wheelchair basketball in a little town in Afghanistan.

At the time, all he knew of this country were the endless US news reports depicting a land ravaged by war: suicide bombers, men in black turbans raising Kalashnikovs, women covered from head to toe in burkas. The men Jess coached on this trip would teach him there is much more to Afghanistan and its people than what was being shown to the world. This simple trip had turned into something much larger: an opportunity to help rebuild the spirit of an entire community of men and women.

Despite the ever-increasing danger and growing unrest as the American presence in the region dwindles, Jess continues to return to Afghanistan to build a true wheelchair basketball league – the first sports league for disabled men and women Afghanistan has ever seen – as well as coach the first men’s and women’s national wheelchair basketball teams ever fielded by the country.

Please join us on the 9th of August to hear Jess Markt's remarkable story of courage and compassion...