
{"id":3681,"date":"2008-10-23T07:24:46","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T15:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=3681"},"modified":"2008-10-23T07:27:05","modified_gmt":"2008-10-23T15:27:05","slug":"athletes-to-athletes-helps-greensboro-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/10\/23\/athletes-to-athletes-helps-greensboro-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Athletes to Athletes&#8217; helps Greensboro youth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/cc3-boys-1.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/cc3-boys-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Staff photo by Kelsey Hamilton. Carrboro athletes, left to right, Brandon Hunter, Evan Arant, Simon Stiffler and Clay Pinney worked this summer to raise awareness for the needs of Peeler Recreation Center in Greensboro.\" title=\"cc3-boys-1\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" align=\"left\" size-medium wp-image-3683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/cc3-boys-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/cc3-boys-1.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><strong>By Kelsey Hamilton<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Courtesy of The Carrboro Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For many high school students, summer means spending time with friends, relaxing at the community pool and sleeping in until lunch. But for four Carrboro High students, their summer vacation meant a whole lot more.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nCarrboro High School seniors Evan Arant, Brandon Hunter, Simon Stiffler and Clay Pinney decided to help Joe Kelly, a Rotary Club member from Greensboro, raise money for a local youth athletic proagram at Peeler Recreation Center in Greensboro.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just wanted to help the community,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stiffler said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everyone should have the opportunity to play sports.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The four students are football players for Carrboro High. Arant said that the project, dubbed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Athletes to Athletes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was something they could relate to because they know the value of what it means to be on a team.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly said that the previous grant for Peeler had expired and they really wanted to continue to hold a basketball league at no cost for local youth in the area. In addition, the students at Carrboro High said that they wanted to provide the kids with snacks because they were at the recreation center from after school until late in the evening, with some having not eaten anything since lunch.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So that was kind of where the kids from Carrboro came in,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kelly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe they were playing without eating. They decided they wanted to raise money to get these kids fed for the upcoming season.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The students heard about Peeler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s situation from Arant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother, who was contacted by Kelly, a longtime friend and fellow graduate of UNC. The students helped Kelly apply for grants and raise money to help fund a basketball league so that local youth could play at no cost.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chapel Hill and Carrboro kids have it a lot better off than what these kids have,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Arant. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just wanted to help.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The name of the project was coined Athletes to Athletes by the students because Arant said they were athletes who wanted to help others who had a passion for sports just like them. The students from Carrboro helped collect signed balls from UNC basketball and football teams to auction off.<\/p>\n<p>Darryl Kosciak, the Youth First coordinator for Greensboro Parks and Recreation and a grant writer from the Greensboro Police Athletic League, recognized the efforts of Kelly and the boys and applied for a joint grant for Peeler from the State of North Carolina Governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Commission on Crime. Peeler Recreation Center and four other centers subsequently received $500,000 to hold football and basketball leagues after school at no cost for the players because it brought kids off the streets and provided a safe place away from gangs and crimes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Even though the kids were not directly responsible for the grant, you could say that the kids were responsible for the grant coming,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kelly.<\/p>\n<p>According to Carrboro High football coach Jason Tudryn, the accomplishments of the four students were not overlooked back at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is a tribute to these guys that they did something that had some meaning and impacted a great deal of people,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Tudryn. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m proud of those guys for following through with that and being a part of it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Arant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother, Mae, said that she was also proud of their willingness to help other children even if it meant sacrificing time during the summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I spoke to Evan about what Joe was doing and the needs of these kids, I was really proud of Evan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mae Arant. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He wanted to do something proactive to keep these boys involved and developed the ideas around Athletes to Athletes. He recruited the other boys immediately.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Mae Arant said that she feels the work of these students should also bring awareness to the importance of providing a safe haven for youth in this community.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just wish that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Durham communities would take note of this grant opportunity that Greensboro developed and do the same for the kids here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They need to act with a sense of urgency to address the very real issues of violence, drugs and gangs in our community.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly said that the dedication of these students to the community of Greensboro is something that is rare, but very special.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just want to give them the opportunity to play sports,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Pinney.<br \/>\nAnd that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just what they did.<\/p>\n<p><em>Kelsey Hamilton is a UNC student writing for The Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}