The Central Alberta Refugee Effort in Red Deer turned to the power of sports to help its newest residents adjust to life in Canada.

Thursday afternoon in Eastview, the group hosted a day of play for youth and families to try out summer sports typically played by people in Canada in the summer, like basketball, volleyball and baseball.

Avery Acheson, an intake and settlement manager for CARE, said sports are an effective way to build bridges.

“It’s a great starting point because the language of sport is very much international. You don’t require a lot of language to learn rules of the game or to learn the structure of the game. So it makes it really easy to teach, instruct and have a really fun day doing it,” Acheson said.

Acheson said CARE wanted to achieve two goals.

The first, to teach the rules of the game so that clients can participate in recreation.

Second, to give families an orientation on the city's rec facilities.

CARE has hosted the event for more than five years, to complement its learn-to-skate program for newcomers in the winter.

Acheson said they expected about 250 people to participate.

“That really does show there’s a lot of desire to do something and be part of the community here," he said.