4 Troubled Teens Blog

Nine teenagers from the Rock Hill, South Carolina, area spent the last month learning how to box. The training camp kept them out of trouble, taught them discipline, and gave them an outlet for their frustrations. All nine want to continue in the program, but funding has become an issue.

"To continue training with the Rock Hill Boxing Club, the nine boys will need a one-year membership to USA Boxing, a national association for the sport," the Rock Hill Herald has reported. "And the fee to become a member will go up next year from $32 to $45. "

An after-school program in the area has agreed to pay the $45 fee in December for two students to continue to box, and will help provide equipment and related supplies. And a local Rock Hill man has agreed to sponsor five of the remaining seven students, but the last two teen still need sponsors, the Herald reported.

Reverend Seth Crosby, who mentors all nine of the young boxers, is asking the community to support the teenagers and help keep the program going.

Labels: sports, mentoring, boxing

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Officer Al Cruz spent 20 years as an Army Ranger. In 2003, he joined the police force, and last summer he started a soccer league, aimed at reaching out to at-risk youth. Every Monday evening he can be seen in a Springfield, Virginia gym, trying to hold his own against a group of middle school students.

After the match, he assembles the players on the bleachers. Each opportunity to connect may be his last ... He starts talking about drugs and gangs. Most of these boys aren't into drugs gangs, but a few are on the edge. (Source: The Washington Post)

Cruz worries that, as winter gives way to spring, Monday night soccer will lose its appeal and the kids will be back on the streets. The first day of summer soccer arrives, with torrential rain and gusty winds. But 40 kids show up anyway. Forty kids in the rain, Cruz calculates, means 200 kids on a sunny day. Two hundred kids staying out of trouble and learning to be part of a team.

Officer Cruz's effort is the latest in a long line of mentoring programs that have been established to provide guidance, direction, and motivation for troubled or at-risk adolescents and teenagers.

Labels: sports, mentoring, teenagers, adolescent

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