With No Football Field To Call Home, Camden Team Channels Disappointment By Helping Others
By Cherri Gregg
CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) -- A youth athletic group in Camden is channeling its disappointment the city's delay building the team's home field into a project to help others.
Their act of kindness will impact a city hundreds of miles away.
The Whitman Park Tigers Youth Football Team has been without a home field for seven years.
"We play wherever someone allows us to play."
Jai Green is Community Relations Coordinator for the team and says the City of Camden was slated to break ground on their field this month-- but it never happened.
The City says the $350,000 grant they received for the project isn't enough, but they are sending out a new bid and hope to break the project into phases.
Phase I would be the basics, regrading and fencing. A clubhouse and other amenities would have to come later.
Green says they're disappointed about the repeated delays, but instead of focusing on their own plight, the team has decided to focus on helping others.
"100,000 bottles of water for the people of Michigan," says Green.
That's their goal, to collect bottles of water to deliver to the people of Flint, Michigan.
The effort began February 1st and ends next week on the 29th. With less than a week to go, the Tigers have collected about 75,000 waters.
They are storing it in a leaky space they rent from the Teamsters in Collingswood, the same space they use to store their football equipment since they do not have a home.
"This is what we have to work with until we get our field," says Green.
But he's hoping their good deeds will send positive vibes that come back to Camden.
"You bless others, you get blessed," says Green, noting that five of their players will get to go to Flint to help deliver the waters.
"Maybe some blessings will come back to us and we'll have a field when we get back to Camden."
Vince Basera, spokesman for Mayor Dana Redd, says the city is hoping to send out a request for bids and move the Whitman Park field project forward in the coming months.
For more on the Whitman Park Tigers' water drive, go to www.whitmanparktigers.com
