“Football helped mold him into a man.’’
Was that before or after the concussions?
"Charity gives Boston youth a sporting chance" June 03, 2012|Bob Hohler
A
teacher at Orchard Gardens K-8 School in Roxbury recently asked his
eighth- graders to write about the disenfranchised. The topic hit home
for Tomell Kelley, a refugee from the Liberian civil war who has spent
much of his youth raising himself while his mother has struggled to make
ends meet.
Two years ago, Kelley was often absent or asleep in
class, according to the staff at Orchard Gardens, one of the state’s
lowest performing schools on standardized tests from 2003-10.
Now
he is a prized student, one of many in the Boston middle schools who
have turned around their lives, thanks in part to a group of charitable
young professionals who have committed more than $1 million over three
years to create interscholastic sports programs for the city’s 11,500
students in grades 6 to 8.
Bringing fun and competition to long-barren athletic venues, the
nonprofit Play Ball Inc. has established football, baseball, volleyball,
and double Dutch jump rope leagues throughout a cash-strapped system
that previously offered middle schoolers only basketball and track.
School
officials said the results have been striking - on the field and in the
classroom. Giving the children an athletic outlet and team experience
has helped many focus more effectively on their studies and to gain a
more a optimistic outlook on life....
In principle, Play Ball is similar to the nonprofit Boston Scholar
Athlete program, which Mayor Thomas M. Menino, with the help of private
philanthropy, established after a Globe series in 2009 detailed
widespread deficiencies in the city’s underfunded athletic system....
See: Ya Gotta Love Sports!
By all accounts, the program has drawn praise throughout the system....
--more--"
