Hoop Dream: Finding Hope

On November 8, 2013 the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall hit the Philippines killing over six thousand people and leaving a nation in ruins. Just days after the catastrophe, while dead bodies still littered the streets, an unexpected thing occurred. A pick-up game of basketball broke out. A group of young men, including Jason Yu who had just lost his entire family, found a basketball rim in the rubble and used debris from their decimated homes to prop it up. On this day, basketball became more than a game, it was a lifeline, an exercise essential to survival.