Youth Programs Put On Kickball Tournament to Get Kids Off Street
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CBS 8 and ABC Montgomery are taking action against crime and having fun while doing it.
A kickball tournament was held at Gateway Park in Montgomery today, all in the hopes of keeping kids off the street.
While the beach and the lake are popular spots on Labor Day, not everyone is fortunate enough to go there. Many kids stayed right here in Montgomery and two ladies wanted to give those kids, who would otherwise be at home or out in the streets, something to do.
“Kick the ball, you run to first and then to second and then third and then home base,” says seven-year-old Desi Stovall.
It’s a simple game…but kickball brought Montgomery’s youth together this Labor Day. The tournament was put on by two ladies who run two separate mentoring programs. Tamika Brown manages ‘Teens and an Angel’ youth program while VJ Giles runs ‘Like Me Mentoring.’
“We got together and just wanted to do something fun in the community and taking it back to our old roots, playing kickball,” Giles says.
Brown and Giles started their mentoring programs in an effort to get kids off the street. Boys and girls ages 11 to 19 came out to listen to music, enjoy food and battle it out in kickball for a trophy. 11-year-old Kavon Barnes tells us he would be at home bored without programs like these.
“To just come out here competing this competition, you know,” says Barnes. “If it weren’t for this competition, I would be around just walking.”
“It’s just for everybody to get together and have fun and just relax,” says Jadderick Baxter.
The tournament lasted more than three hours. Brown tells us it’s all about giving the youth a purpose.
“A lot of our youth over on that side feel as though, ‘oh we can’t be anybody’ and ‘we’re not going to be anybody’ because no one’s actually giving them the inspiration to come up off the west side and do something with their life,” she says. “And we’re here to show you that, look you can be what you want to be.”
Both ‘Like Me Mentoring’ and ‘Teens and an Angel’ Youth programs are accepting new kids.
For more information, call 470-257-1455.
