Things were going really nicely with his unique charity for a few years there. Hundreds of old trophies that people had donated to him were being refurbished and given to low-income groups in the Hamilton, Burlington and Oakville areas, to then be handed out to the players.

Repeat Champions — that’s his organization’s name — was picking up steam and making a whole lot of kids happy.

Then COVID hit.

“We survived,” says founder and director Sarino Genovese. “But it put us three years behind, unfortunately.”

They’re catching up today, though. And then some.

This story begins back in 2017, when he and his son were dropping off some trash at the East Mountain community recycling centre. They noticed a kid smashing trophies before throwing them in the bin. Nothing malicious. It was just garbage. Still …

“I thought, something’s not right with that,” Genovese says.

These prizes have a story. For many folks, there’s an emotional connection to a memorable childhood moment or a victory. A trophy represents an achievement. An accomplishment. A tangible bit of proof that they did something special.

He didn’t think much more about it until the next time they went to drop off some stuff. Amazingly, they saw something similar again. That’s when his big idea struck.

What if all these old trophies that are gathering dust in basements and garages could be donated, refurbished and then given to inner-city kids?

“A lot of kids have never had a trophy,” he says.

Within a week, his daughter had come up with a name and a website (repeatchampions.ca) had been created. The morning after it launched, he got his first email from someone in Caledonia asking how two big crates of trophies could be dropped off.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who thought this could be a good idea.

Soon, donations were flooding in. As they would arrive, the figures on top — a baseball player, hockey player, football player or whatever — would be removed and replaced with a cup. Something a little more generic. Then the inscribed metal plate on the front was taken off and passed on to places that handle scrap and the whole thing would be polished up. And when they were done?

“The trophies look brand new,” Genovese says.

While many rep teams or even house leagues charge a registration fee that essentially includes the cost of a trophy, not everyone can afford that. Many sports groups and other organizations working with low-income communities don’t have the budget to buy trophies. So any charity or not-for-profit organization could reach out through his website and apply for however many they needed. They’d then get their request delivered.

Time after time, he would hear from parents that this trophy was the first their child had ever received. The stories were really quite beautiful. One in particular, from a special needs organization that got a bunch of his fixed-up trophies, stands out.

“When we handed them over, (the kids) held them and were yelling, ‘Champion! Champion! Champion!’” he says.

It was obvious he’d stumbled on something special.

Trouble was, when the pandemic hit, everything dried up. Leagues shut down. Donations slowed. Volunteers needed to fix up the trophies dwindled. Genovese wondered if this was it. It was a good idea. He gave it a great shot. Oh, well.

Yet in the years since life has returned to normal, business has exploded. He now gets calls and emails from all over the country and even into the United States. He’s blown away that people pay to send their trophies to him. Some folks have driven two and a half hours with a load of gifts. He has a group of folks who drive all over the place to pick up donations, too.

“People don’t want them thrown away,” Genovese says.

Today, he has received close to 22,000 donations. Two Hamilton storage facilities currently hold about 16,000 trophies ready to be fixed up and given away. The rest are ready to go or have been distributed. High school students wanting to complete their volunteer hours now come in groups of 25 or 30 on what they call Super Saturdays to help handle the load.

Even with that, things are growing so fast he needs more helpers and more space. Probably more cash donations, too, since each one costs about $2 to make ready. He doesn’t make a dime off the effort, and much of that has come from him.

And it’s about to get even bigger.

The requests he gets are from all over North America. So Repeat Champions is about to expand across the province. That’s the first step. Then the plan is to go all across Canada.

“One day we will,” he says. “We’re pretty close.”