Once again, I find my-self between a rock and a hard place. I can write about the 12-year-old child who was murdered a week ago in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, or I could write about the poor five-year- old who was shot while in a car with his grandfather and father, at a gas station, over this past weekend, in a situation that according to police, appears to have been a retaliation shooting. The grandfather in
that crime is still in critical condition at a local hospital. Those of us who continue to believe in the power of prayer are praying for all the innocent victims of crime in our city and cities around the world. Crime doesn’t just visit here in Philadelphia;
crime and violence are something too many of us know about worldwide.
Today I chose to focus this column on a good news story that can uplift some of the youth in our community. There’s a nonprofit organization that was formed by several adult men who have a love and passion for basket- ball called 4 The Kidz Basketball. In short, they offer free basketball Pop-Up clinics ever so often at a number of locations around the city. Currently, they are offering a Pop-Up Basketball Clinic for youth at the Panati Recreation Center at 3101 N. 22nd Street, that’s at 22nd and Clearfield, on Saturdays, starting in July. The best news of all is that it is free; interested parents should call Charles Dickins at 814-470-5931 or Brent Hawthorne at 267-847-0042. The clinics will run from 10 am-1 pm on Saturdays in July.
Brent Hawthorne, one of the leaders of this basketball program for youth, shared a little bit about how 4The Kidz got started. He credits his wife with coming up with the name of the youth basketball program. “I started with several of my friends in 2004, officially, but unofficially, we started working with youth, teaching them some basic basketball skills in 2001. At the time, I was the Middle School Coach at Germantown Friends School. On the weekends, we would have some of the adults from the community come to the school and play basketball on Sunday mornings at the gym. Occasionally, some of us would bring our kids with us, who were in the age group of 10-12. Our children would watch us, shoot from the sidelines and play a little basketball themselves while we were playing. Every once in a while, one of their balls would get onto the court, and the kids were kind of getting in the way. There are three or four gyms at Germantown Friends School–it’s huge, so we decided to open another gym for the kids while we were playing.”
“As time went on, the word started getting out, and more people started bringing their kids up to Germantown Friends School on Sundays to play basketball. One day we looked up, and we had like thirty kids in the gym, everybody running around. That’s when we realized we had to get things formally, …
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