NCAA basketball star Aaliyah Edwards to host basketball camp in hometown of Kingston, Ont.

Kingston’s Aaliyah Edwards is back from Mexico, where she helped lead Canada to a bronze medal at the FIBA AmeriCup championship. It’s not the result she was hoping for, but nevertheless, Edwards is grateful for the time spent with the senior women’s national basketball team.

But this time around, Edwards, who turned only 21 on the tournament’s final day, was given a leadership role on the veteran squad.

“Each year that I get older I get better as a basketball player but I’m also growing as a person,” Edwards said. “I think that’s a big thing I’m noticing about myself because the game isn’t all physical, it’s mental too, so I was just grateful to be put in a leadership role.”

Edwards has wrapped up her commitments to the Canadian national team for the summer and will now focus on her last season with the University of Connecticut.

But before that, she’s taking time to give back to Kingston by offering a basketball camp at her former high school this Saturday at Frontenac Secondary School.

1:55 Young Kingston, Ont. basketball players hone their skills at Kingston Impact summer camp

“So to come back to share this with my community was a priority for me,” Edwards said. “I’ve always wanted to give back to my community, I just didn’t have the time to, but now that I do, I wanted to seek every moment that I could.”

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The camp is free to all those who sign up — Edwards just asks for the donation of non-perishable food items to Martha’s Table, an organization near and dear to her heart.

“When I was in Grade 6, and my mom and my brother were my coaches for Kingston Impact, we actually did fundraisers throughout our school and then as a team we all went to Martha’s Table and we donated those food perishables, and also we helped serve food,” Edwards said.

The You Got Knext camp, a play on Kingston’s YGK airport locator, will be broken up into two age categories: grades 7 to 9 in the morning and 10 to 12 in the afternoon.

Even with more than 150 registrations already received, Edwards says there’s still time to sign up for what she promises will be a fun day.

Those interested in signing up can do so at ygk-basketball-camp.webflow.io.