Trinity Classical Academy alumnus Lucas Spring has always been passionate about the game of basketball. The guard became the program’s all-time leading scorer last season and led the Knights to the playoffs in all four of his varsity years.  Since graduating, Spring has taken on new challenges off the court to say the least.   This past summer, the 2024 grad opted into a field operation to Kenya with local nonprofit organization L Squared. The mission was to provide literal tons of food, water points and food sustainability to the impoverished citizens of Maasai Mara.  Spring knew soccer was the most popular sport for the Maasai but first got the idea to build a basketball court from his father.   “A lot of them play soccer over there. That’s the main sport,” Spring said. “There were a lot of girls that were really excited about basketball, and they had been playing on a dirt field, it was really nothing. There were cows sitting in the middle of their basketball court, no cement or anything. They were like, ‘Can you please help us? We want to play basketball.’”  The former Knight wasn’t sure if they’d be able to build the court while he was there. The funds weren’t building up as quickly as he’d hoped but eventually Spring and L Squared had the green light and the resources to build the basketball court.  Spring did more than just help raise funds for the court, as he helped lay the pavement, clear the area and set up the hoops. While the court could appear to serve as just a recreational sport for the local Maasai children, Spring knows it’s so much more.  Lucas Spring. Courtesy photo. “I think it will have a huge impact, because in Kenya, they’re all very, very dedicated to their studies,” Spring said. “It’s not so much about sports over there. The girls enjoy school,  but everybody needs something outside of that. I think it’ll devote a lot of girls to sports in general, just with that opportunity, because a lot of the time, the reason that they’re not in sports is because there’s just nowhere for them to play, nowhere for them to do anything.”   Spring had to be ready for anything from carjackings to co-existing with safari wildlife, and went through special training under L Squared CEO David Stratton before heading to Kenya. Stratton leads two to three trips to Kenya each year, where his group brings tons of food, builds kitchens, and aims to cultivate lands, fencing off and planting in areas to provide self-sustaining feeding programs.  “We dropped off a ton and a half of food,” Stratton said. “We went to communities, remote villages and places in Africa where people are currently at risk of starvation, being trafficked, and having many different challenges related to food insecurity.”  While providing food and sustainability always remains the focus, Stratton kept Spring focused on playing sports with and empowering the local children.  “We played a lot of sports with the kids,” Stratton said. “I had Lucas particularly focused on playing sports and focusing on empowering the students through sports. We’re experimenting with some new curriculum right now that builds leaders through sports and Lucas was one of the pioneers in that project.”  Stratton typically leads the field operations with his wife and family. The CEO opted to bring volunteers on this trip and his churchmate Spring was the first official sign-up.  It was a whole new world for Spring, as expected, and he took in all the different factors of another culture.  “Any time you go out of the country, you get a different perspective, but over there it’s so different,” Spring said. “The people are very nice. It’s really community-based. You sit down and talk to people a lot more than you do here. Here people just walk by each other, don’t say anything, but over there you’re kind of communicating with everybody. You’re just in the middle of the safari land with all these different wild animals running around. There’s people living in extreme poverty, which is like they’re living on and working for less than $5 a day while we’re making $20 an hour over here. So it was very eye-opening.”  Spring wanted to work in the field operation for the greater good, and in process observed that, in L Squared, Stratton not only raises funds, but also goes on the trip and leads the mission with his own two hands.   Construction of L Squared’s basketball court. Courtesy photo. “A lot of this stuff is extremely expensive. This small organization with the amount of funds that they have, they’re doing a ton of work,” Spring said “A lot of that’s because it’s like hands-on, like they’re going over there, doing it themselves.”  Stratton founded L Squared over 10 years ago with a dream of “providing a lasting and positive impact for those who need it the most,” as the nonprofit’s mission statement reads.  “The need is so big now, the impact is lasting,” Stratton said. “One of the things that we did was we built this water point. Now we’re solving the problem for that community. There’s only so many water points and so many kitchens that this community needs, and then we can move on to the next one. That’s the goal: to empower and get a community on its pathway to thriving, and then move to the next one.”  Since founding the nonprofit organization, he has found ways to minimize the spending in all aspects of the field operation and feels every penny makes an impact on each trip.  “We should be spending four to 10 times more than what we do to accomplish what we accomplish,” Stratton said. “We can do wells and water projects for a 10th of what it normally costs an organization because I negotiate every part of the transaction, because we hire laborers directly, because we do everything ourselves, and that’s how we’ve been able to have an impact with growing funds.”  Construction of L Squared’s basketball court. Courtesy photo. Sports are one of the many additions L Squared has added to its charitable operation. The organization also provides menstrual products to the impoverished young Maasai women. Stratton said the local female students are too poor to purchase their own and will miss school days without them. On top of missing out on education, Stratton said the women are at risk of sexual abuse should they be out of school and unsupervised.  “What we do with these pads is we give them to these girls, empower them to stay in school, whether it be monitored or not, they have supervision, and eyes are on them, keeping them away from bad actors,” Stratton said.  L Squared accepts donations on its website, www.l2squared.org/donate. Any money given goes directly to the next field operation and in turn helps feed the impoverished people of Maasai Mara.  “All the funds go to our operations and our projects that are currently in Kenya,” Stratton said. “We have several projects on the board that we’re looking to fund. We do everything ourselves directly so I don’t have a third party, we source all the materials in the ground, and we do the work ourselves. So I would say, we’re very competitive cost-wise. The cost that it takes us to do things, and I negotiate everything down to like, a few pennies.”  Spring returned from the field operation in August and didn’t get to see the basketball court completed. Stratton is hoping his young volunteer can find some time in the next year or so to return to Kenya and see the court.  “Lucas is a team player,” Stratton said. “When you go into a situation like this, you need a team and people who are team players. There were many moments where we were in situations with challenges; Africa is a very dangerous place. But Lucas was the solution and kept the team tight. I love talking about Lucas, because it goes right back to the team. When you have a team player, and you’re in a unit, you’re impenetrable.”  Spring will now enter the next stage of his life: college. One of Trinity’s brightest is headed to UCLA to pursue a degree in business economics. The now-Bruin is excited to return to Kenya with L Squared, with more plans for the Maasai children.  “I definitely see myself going back,” Spring said. “It’s inspired me to want to travel more, to want to do more things like this. I see myself going back to run some training camps, maybe run a summer camp sometime when the paint’s fully finished. I’ll definitely be back again.”  Spring remains inspired and will aim to keep on giving even more to the people he knows can never truly give back to him. However, Spring and Stratton agree, maybe that’s the best part.  “There’s nothing more fulfilling than when you help someone that can’t do anything for you,” Stratton said. “It just changes you. It’s been the most rewarding thing of my life to help these people.”  The post Trinity alum builds basketball court for impoverished  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.