The South EastMan Filipino Association Basketball League is growing by leaps and bounds.

Spokesperson Abram Razon says the league held their opening ceremonies this past weekend to kick off their largest season to date.

"We expanded from a maximum of six teams coming from the southeastern to 12 teams now having almost 200 players involved in the league."

Mayor Earl Funk and the SEMFA Officers hand cheque to Josh Gruninger from the Bethesda Regional Health CentreRazon says one of the main reasons the league has grown so much is the addition of two new divisions.

"We used to have only the people who could compete at the highest level and now we have a division for 14-years-old and under and then there is the highest competition level ages 15 to 34-years-old, and then we have the veterans division for the elder people, 35 years old and older."

Razon says much like Canadians live and breathe hockey, Filipinos are dedicated to the sport of Basketball. He notes the SEMFA Basketball League creates great community and provides everyone with a chance to make friends.

A raffle was held at this year’s opening ceremonies and Razon says they were able to raise $800 for the Bethesda Regional Health Centre’s Cancer Care Program. He notes choosing Cancer Care as the recipient was a no-brainer decision.

"I presented it to the rest of the committee and they said 'why not'. My main reason was we lost a couple very important people in our Filipino community here to cancer and we have another few fighting cancer right now so it is just coming back to the roots and cancer is obviously a very major problem out there for others."

The SEMFA Basketball league kicked off last weekend and will run until November 16th with games held every Saturday at either Clearspring Middle School or Stonybrook Middle School.