BUCKFIELD — Heidi Hamann loved basketball. Her daughter, Ashlee, also loves basketball and loved her mom.

Heidi was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and by 2009, it had spread to her brain.

In 2010, Heidi was very ill and Ashlee – a Buckfield basketball player herself since the age of five, along with her friends at the National Honors Society and the Buckfield Junior Senior High School – would come up with the idea of Hoops for Heidi.

For Ashlee one of the best ways to honor her mom and to raise money for Lewiston’s Patrick Dempsey Center, a place that helped her mom and her family so much during Heidi’s illness, was to give people a place to come together and play the sport Heidi loved.

“She was a huge fan, I don’t think she ever missed a [Buckfield] game,” Ashlee said with a smile.

“The Dempsey Center did a lot for our family” Ashlee said. “My mom could get free massages to help her, they would give rides to the family when we needed it and the youth group they offered was a big help to my younger brother during everything.”

At the Dempsey Center, the services are free to the families in need. The money raised during events like Hoops for Heidi goes to help those families.

Twenty-three basketball teams made up of a variety of ages packed into Buckfield Junior Senior High School on Saturday, March 12, and raised nearly a $1,000 for Hoops for Heidi and the Dempsey Center.

From boys and girls as young as 9 to adult men and women, everyone had the same thing in mind: Enjoy a day full of basketball while raising money to help the Dempsey Center.

The day-long, round robin style tournament was a four versus four event, with teams mostly from Turner, Oxford Hills and Buckfield.

The uniqueness of the event was that you could find a dad or mom playing with their children on a team, taking on a team of either all kids or even all adults.

Everyone throughout the day kept saying the same thing.

“It’s a fun day of basketball with friends and family for a great cause.”

“The first year we did it, we had a good turnout but it wasn’t huge, now we have a lot of the same teams come back and help spread the word,” Ashlee said. “It’s definitely evolving, which is good.”

Heidi would pass away in 2012. Hoops for Heidi, now in its seventh year, continues to grow in her honor.