Thank You to Our Sponsors and Partners

IMPACT’s Long Branch Athletic Association Program would not be possible without the generous support of sponsors and community partners. Thank you!

HEADLINERS

BARBER

UNISEX LLC

Silver Spring

Civic Building at

Veteran’s Plaza

Long Branch Athletic Association Program

Program Update

May 2012

www.impactsilverspring.org

The Hon. Valerie Ervin

Montgomery County Council

Long Branch Athletic Association

Ronnie Galvin Executive Director Ronnie@impactsilverspring.org Jayne Park Senior Strategic Advisor Jayne@impactsilverspring.org Elizabeth McMeekin Network Manager Elizabeth@impactsilverspring.org Long Branch Office 8545 Piney Branch Rd Silver Spring, MD 20901 Tel# 301.495.3336 www.impactsilverspring.org IMPACT Silver Spring works to create a thriving, multicultural community where everyone is engaged in and has the power to bring about the changes they need to live a full and quality life

LBAA Successes to Date LBAA News

Long Branch Unity Festival On Saturday, May 5th, 2012 youth from IMPACT's Long Branch Athletic Association and Maryland GreenHawks players Super Fly, Hi-Rise, and Pat-The-Rock defeated a team of community lead-ers in the annual Long Branch Celebrity Basketball Game. This year's celebrity game, part of the Department of Recreation's Unity Festival, brought together members from every corner of the community. Celebrity team participants included Honest Tea founder Seth Goldman, Montgomery County Councilmember Marc Elrich, Gabe Alobornoz and Ronald Martin of the Depart-ment of Recreation, and Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy, among others. The game was sponsored by Honest Tea and its partners at the American Beverage Association; the local nonalcoholic beverage companies announced a $25,000 partnership grant to support IMPACT's youth sports and health programming at the Long Branch Community Center.

The GreenHawks put on a dribbling and dunking exhibition before (and during!!) the game. The victorious youth team was coached by LBAA coaches T.C. Williams and Mike Womack. The crowd enjoyed a halftime dance show performed by the Park Montgomery All-Stars. And before the basketball game students from Einstein, Blair, Northwood, and Springbrook High Schools competed in a futsol tournament run by the Department of Rec's Sports Academies program.

IMPACT's Long Branch Athletic Association is buzzing as spring winds down and summer revs up. Youth soccer teams, led by parent coaches and coordinators, are finishing up their spring seasons in the Takoma Soccer league and will begin summer practices when school lets out. High-school-age basketball participants will be engaged in a summer jobs cohort, connecting with their neighbors to create opportunities to develop skills and generate income.

On Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 more than 50 community members met at El Golfo restaurant in Long Branch for a Network Night to discuss youth employment opportunities for summer. Among those in attendance were some 20 teenagers from the Long Branch Athletic Association rec-reational basketball program. Many of the young people in attendance had reported difficulties in finding much-needed summer jobs. The Network Night was organized into three activities: (1) Youth inter-viewed adults about their early work experiences, (2) Youth collected concrete offers, connections, and ideas from guests regarding youth jobs, and (3) Youth were given an opportunity to share their skills and the types of job opportunities that they are looking for. The event gen-erated several concrete job opportunities from dog walking to home-work help and yard work. In addition, the event created a wonderful space for intergenerational and intercultural exchanges that will hope-fully extend beyond the evening. The young people will reconvene in June for an orientation. They will be connected with specific jobs, learn fee negotiation skills, and general workplace etiquette. This is a pilot program that IMPACT hopes to replicate with other groups of local teens.

Youth Jobs Project

“I enjoy helping to coach my son’s soccer team. This is good for his future and will help to keep him on the right path. This is definitely a good thing for him. It’s why I come all of the time.” —Julio Hernandez, LBAA par-ent and volunteer coach

Program Goal: The Long Branch Athletic Association program empowers families to form and operate youth sports teams in neighborhoods where young people are typically disconnected from local athletics leagues. LBAA youth participants become more supported by their parents and peers, and are exposed to op-portunities outside of school and athletics. By capitalizing on the convening power of sports, families are able to build better relationships with their neighbors and participate in the life of their community. Many of these same families are also able to easily connect to emergency services and the capacity building support available to them in the Family Asset Building Net-work (FABNET).

Successes to date in Fiscal Year 2012: • 15 parents replaced outside volunteers to coach and coordinate 130

youth between kindergarten and fifth grade on 8 soccer teams in the fall and spring

• 60 youth in middle and high school participated on 6 basketball teams in

the winter • 25 high school youth participated in weekly life-skills sessions in associa-

tion with their winter basketball teams • 6 high school youth made over $1500.00 working for IMPACT’s FABNET

partners • 2 high school basketball teams visited Howard University • 1 middle and 1 high school basketball team visited American University • 20 youth participated in a focus group and a networking night in prepara-

tion for a summer jobs program