07/13/2026
"Sweetgrass First Nation, Saskatchewan. Early 2000s.
Kendal Netmaker is 10 years old, in Grade 5, raised alongside three younger sisters by his single mother on a reserve near North Battleford.
Money is tight enough that sports registration, equipment, and transportation are simply out of reach.
A classmate named Johan notices Netmaker never signs up for anything and asks him why. When Netmaker explains, Johan tells his father, a doctor originally from South Africa.
Without being asked twice, the man pays Netmaker's soccer registration fees and starts driving him to practices.
Here's what makes it worse: Netmaker doesn't fully register the magnitude of the gift until years later. By Grade 7, Johan's family gives the Netmakers a 1986 Crown Victoria, so his mother can finally drive all four kids to games and practices herself.
It's not until adulthood that Netmaker understands what that single act of generosity actually changed in his family's trajectory.
Sports become Netmaker's anchor through a childhood otherwise shaped by poverty on the reserve, at a time when Canada is only beginning a painful national reckoning with how its systems have historically failed Indigenous families and children.
Netmaker goes on to earn two degrees at the University of Saskatchewan, a Bachelor of Arts in Native Studies and a Bachelor of Education. He plans to become a teacher. Then, in his final year, he sees posters around campus for a student business pitch competition.
2011.
Netmaker enters the competition, then run by Brett Wilson of CBC's "Dragons' Den," and wins $10,000. He is 23 years old, working out of a one-bedroom Saskatoon apartment, with no business connections and no startup capital of his own. He uses the prize money to print a small line of T-shirts.
He names the brand Neechie Gear, from the Plains Cree word for "friend" - a direct nod to Johan, the boy who once noticed what he lacked and did something about it.
The idea is simple: sell sports apparel, and use a share of every sale to cover registration and equipment costs for Indigenous kids who can't otherwise afford to play.
The first kiosk opens in a Saskatoon mall and sells out almost immediately. Pop-up shops follow across the country. Netmaker commits 5 percent of Neechie Gear's profits, a figure that later grows toward 10 percent, directly to youth sports funding.
Within a few years, Neechie Gear apparel is sold in nearly every Canadian province, worn by athletes on local, provincial, and national-level sports teams.
In February 2015 alone, Netmaker collects two national honors within the same month: the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business Youth Entrepreneur of the Year award and an Indspire Award in the Youth category, before flying to Dubai as a finalist for a global young entrepreneur prize.
Growth is not instant or easy. Netmaker later admits there were points early on when he was ready to quit, propped up mostly by staying around people who kept him thinking positively.
Neechie Gear eventually expands to physical stores in Saskatoon and Prince Albert, then pivots almost entirely to e-commerce and wholesale distribution - a shift Netmaker makes just before the COVID-19 pandemic hits, which turns out to be, in his words, fortuitous timing.
By 2019, Netmaker is personally mentoring 40 youth across Canada and has funded bursaries for 19 Indigenous post-secondary students. He founds IndigiFund, a nonprofit extension of the business, to formalize funding for sports, education, and cultural programming for Indigenous youth nationwide.
Over the following decade, Netmaker's combined efforts help fund sports participation for several thousand Indigenous children across the country. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly shouts out Neechie Gear on Instagram.
Netmaker becomes a sought-after motivational speaker, sharing his story with First Nations communities and telling children something his late grandmother once told his mother: if you don't like how things are right now, you can change it when you're older.
A boy who couldn't afford a $50 soccer fee grew up to build a company that has quietly paid that fee forward for thousands of kids he will never meet.
Someone who needs to know - you never know which small kindness might become someone else's entire life's work."
