Midget Pro-Bowl seeks ‘One Hood’

Event promotes unity among all players.

By Deborah M. Todd

Full Story In The New Pittsburgh Courier

The tensions that arise on game day for Pittsburgh's midget football teams often have less to do with team rivalries than ongoing beefs between the team's neighborhoods. With that in mind, organizers decided to use the All-Star game to bring everyone on the same team.

The Housing Authority of Pittsburgh and the One Hood Coalition came together to host the first annual "One Hood Midget Football Pro-Bowl" Nov. 19. While the purpose of the game was to recognize the accomplishments of roughly 320 young athletes from Southwestern Pennsylvania and Allegheny County Midget programs, the event was also meant to promote unity among all players.

"It's important they stress the fact that we're all from one community and we need to begin breaking down barriers between us," said Richard Morris of the Housing Authority.

"We hope some kind of bond or friendship will come about," said Bob Poston, president of the Midget Football League. "Hopefully, through this, we can stop some of the violence."

Understanding that it would take more than a single football game to unite young people used to being adversaries on and off the field, Morris reached out to the One Hood Coalition to help spark a dialogue between them.

"They asked us to come in to do a workshop to engage young people in conversation about popular culture and how (it) influences daily decisions," said Paradise Gray of One Hood.

The Nov. 17 workshop invited young people from throughout the community to join the more than 400 youth football attendees to a community forum on violence prevention. As the youth were encouraged to create alliances with one another despite being from different teams and communities, they were lead by example through moderators from the One Hood Coalition and the violence prevention initiative One Vision, One Life.

"It's always positive when all types of organizations from all the different communities can be represented at one table," said Khari Mosley of One Hood. "It's really important to have groups like "One Vision, One Life" involved, who have been doing a lot of work on the ground for the past couple years. Now there's new organizations like "One Hood" coming into the fold as partners trying to assist a lot of the good work that's been going on."

To pay homage to their efforts in bringing the community together, One Hood was promised a $500 check from the Housing Authority. But for all parties involved with the Midget Pro-Bowl, the true reward came from seeing kids from Homewood to Beltzhoover form bonds that may not have existed otherwise.

"I think it's a wonderful thing that they brought everyone in the communities together," said Marilyn Stubbs of Beltzhoover, whose son Keenan played for the Southwest All Stars. "This last week, his experience has been so wonderful that he's been coming home from practice talking about "Mom, I played with this team and that team I was playing against. We all came together and became as one."



By Deborah M. Todd

Full Story In The New Pittsburgh Courier

http://www.myspace.com/paradisegray

The First Annual “One HOOD” Midget Football Pro-Bowl

The First Annual “One HOOD” Midget Football Pro-Bowl

In the wake of the increase of youth violence in our community, a group of leaders from different organizations have come together in unity to address the challenges by providing outlets to bring young people from different communities together using sports and recreational activities.

The Housing Authority of Pittsburgh is honoring “The One HOOD Coalition” this year by naming the pee-wee All-Star game: The First Annual “One HOOD” Midget Football Pro-Bowl. The games will feature the largest assembly of young talent that our city has ever seen.

The activities begin on Friday Nov. 17th From 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
The One HOOD Coalition and One Vision One Life will host a Violence Prevention Youth Seminar at the Presley Street High Rise 601 Presley St.
(on the North Side behind the Giant Eagle Market).

The All-Star games are scheduled for November 19th at Oliver High School Stadium from 10 am to 5 pm and will include teams from two city leagues and will showcase as many as 320 players from throughout the city. There will be four games featuring players in the age ranges of 7–14 years old and there’s sure to be a future NFL player in the bunch. These children are to be commended for the hard work and dedication it has taken them to become “2006 One HOOD All-Stars”. Please join us in celebrating players from the following areas:

Allegheny County Midget All-Stars The Clairton Bears, Garfield Gators, Hill District Disciples , Homewood Bulldogs, Kingsley Knights, Lincoln-Larimer Big Cats, North Shore Stallions, and The Wilkinsburg Hornets.

South West Midget Football All Stars The Beltzhoover Browns, Braddock Falcons, Hazelwood Cobra’s, 6th Ward Seminoles, and the West Pittsburgh Steelers.

Participating Organizations;

The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh:
The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh is the highest quality provider of affordable housing in the city.

Our agency is committed to providing our residents with top notch sell sufficiency programs and youth recreational opportunities. – A. Fulton Meachem Jr. - HACP Executive Director.

One Vision One Life
One Vision One Life Is a violence prevention initiative whose goal is to reduce violence by offering an opportunity to a better life.

Bringing communities together is our goal. Being involved with the midget football league gives us the opportunity to do that. – Taili Thompson

One HOOD:
A pro-active grassroots alliance of young leaders from faith based organizations, community activists, political groups and concerned citizens, “Putting the Neighbor Back into The Hood”.

The League Of Young Voters:
A National organization that empowers 18 – 35 years olds in the civic process by making politics meaningful, relevant and fun.

Our organization always stresses that voting is just one aspect of being an active citizen. We must engage our communities using various forms of activism. Which includes mentoring young people to be positive and productive. - Khari Mosley Reginal Director

The Millions More Movement:
The Mission of the Milions More Movement is to gather the best, brightest and most willing minds to mobilize and organize our people, and to develop short and long range plans and programs for human development.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan teaches, "The more we unify, the more power we can generate to change reality." Our coming together is the first step of a movement that can and will change the conditions of our communities and our people. - Minister Jasiri X


Disciples Of The Village:
A faith based community organization that reminds us that “it still takes a village to raise a child”.

I am excited by the opportunity to provide this kind of outlet for the kids.
This is a great chance to celebrate positive efforts by our youth rather than focus on negative aspects of their lives. - Darnell Drewery

ISLah:
ISLah means the Initiative to Safeguard Life Assets and Honor- it is the outreach portion of
Masjid Nur Uz Zamaan (Light of the Age Mosque)

Organized sports has always been a means to create character in our community when it is not mistaken for personal gain and opportunity. - Luqman abdus-salaam

The BlackWatch Movement:
A National organization founded to fight for the rights of disenfranchised inner city youth, empowering them to use common sense, right reasoning and critical thinking to take responsibility for self.

You can’t just tell young people to say no to this and say no to that, at some point you have to give them something to say yes to. – Paradise Gray

Media contact info:
HACP Community affairs dept. 412-456-5058
rohrerc@hacp.org

One Vision, One Life – Tamera Miller – 412-434-1287

One HOOD Coalition – Paradise Gray – 412-537-1940
onehood@gmail.com

Allegheny County Midget Football - Bob Poston – President - 412-401-8439

http://www.myspace.com/onehoodorg
http://www.myspace.com/paradisegray