Rumph Classic: Some call her Grandma, most know her as Ms. Candy, and she’s Germantown’s superwoman

Viola Owens lost her only child on Mother’s Day in 2005. She promised God that if she overcame that pain, she would help other parents going through similar tragedies.

Owens’ son, Danny Rumph, died at age 21 from sudden cardiac arrest. He collapsed on the court while playing a pickup basketball game with his friends at the Mallery Recreation Center, a familiar stomping ground for the Germantown native. Owens, who’s known as “Ms. Candy,” later learned that her son suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the leading cause of sudden cardiac arrest among young athletes.

Rumph was healthy and strong and considered one of the best basketball players in the Philly area at the time. He was getting ready to play his senior season at Western Kentucky that fall.

Although she had the most important person in her life taken away from her, Owens stayed true to her promise. In July 2005, she joined family members and friends to start the Daniel E. Rumph II Foundation as a way to remember Rumph, who was known as a giver and mentor.

In 2006, the first Rumph Classic, a five-day basketball tournament, was held in Rumph’s honor. The tournament and foundation spread awareness about the importance of heart screenings and lifesaving resources like automated external defibrillators, which Owens believes could have saved her son’s life.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Rumph Classic, where stars and local legends come together in the pro-am tournament. The festivities tip off Thursday at Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center, with eight teams competing for a spot in the championship game on Monday.

As Owens reflects on 20 years, she is awed by the growth of the foundation, which has worked to provide every recreation center and Boys & Girls Club across Philly with AEDs and CPR training.

» READ MORE: ‘Something special’ in Philly, the Danny Rumph Classic marks its 20th anniversary this week

But Owens’ efforts with the foundation are not her only form of activism. For the last 20 years, she has helped clothe and feed homeless children and teens in the Germantown area. Her efforts led her to become a foster parent.

“I have a foster home [on Sharpnack Street],” said Owens, who has lived in Germantown for 38 years. “I’ve been doing a lot to help homeless kids. We have a lot of homeless kids in Germantown. … I would do anything to have my son back, anything in the world, and some [of] y’all are throwing your kids away like they don’t mean anything to you.”

Since August 2005, Owens has held giveaways four times a year at Vernon Park, Cliveden, Braid Mill, and Mallery playground, now named the Rumph-Mallery Center, where she provides clothing and shoes to those without homes. She’ll also supply a meal.

Her foster home has become a safe haven for teens, who refer to Owens as “Grandma.” Not everyone can stay there, but when someone comes knocking on her door, she asks, “Can I get you something to eat?”

“June 28 was the last time we did [the giveaway],” Owens said. “One of my foster kids that I had a couple of years ago said to me, ‘Grandma, can I go get some of my homeless friends?’ I said, ‘Sure, that’s what we’re here for.’ Never in 100 years, I thought that he was going to come around the corner with all these kids. It was really tear-jerking to talk to them and hear their stories. All of them were in the system, got put out of the system, and had nowhere to go. We sat out there from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. and just let the people come get all the clothes and shoes they want, and we fed them.

“I can’t turn them away, because I know the position that they’re in, and it’s sad. It’s really sad. But I did have some luck with a couple of them.”

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Her first foster child, whom she later adopted, bounced between foster homes and is now 20. Owens took him in at age 12. Previous foster parents told her that he had emotional problems, that he would never graduate from high school, and would be incarcerated by age 16.

But that’s not what Owens saw. She saw a child who had been neglected, who didn’t know if he was allowed to come out of his bedroom or eat food from the refrigerator without asking for permission. There were hard times, Owens said, but she didn’t give up.

“He did graduate high school, he’s never been locked up, and he’s working a very good job right now as a server and bartender in Ambler,” she said. “People look at him and [say], ‘I can’t believe you’re the same person.’ He was a handful — they all are, even the ones that don’t have problems. Now, he’s so polite — he grew into a whole different person.

“I love doing it because I have a giving heart. I know my biggest problem is that I don’t know how to say no. I now have 7-year-old twins. I have a 19-year-old, and my 20-year-old that I adopted. … All of them have emotional problems. They are the ones nobody wants.”

The twin boys came to Owens last March and have been with her ever since. They call her “Mom” instead of “Grandma.” They’ve been moving around the system since they were 2, she said. Owens had just gotten them into trauma therapy, and there has been progress. She said the twins have opened up in a way they hadn’t before.

» READ MORE: In Danny Rumph’s honor, family and foundation work to prevent sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes

On top of her work with the foster children, Owens makes time to help other children who are homeless or in shelters. Some nights, she’ll go to nearby stores and restaurants and ask if they have any leftover food that she can give out.

No child should go to sleep hungry, she said. Owens would like to see change in the foster care system in Pennsylvania, but what she can control now is helping the community around her in Germantown.

It’s what Rumph would have wanted.

“Danny used to come to Mallery with a trunk of clothes and shoes to give away to the kids,” she said. “I would say to him, ‘I’ve got to buy so much clothes because you’re giving it away.’ He was like, ‘I learned it from my mother’ — and I can hear him saying it.”