More Hoops in More Hoods

While B-Ball on the Block is taking Little Village by storm, Back of the Yards is also getting in on the basketball action. Over at the Neighborhood Sports Chicago web site, Cristobal Martinez has a report with photos from last Friday night's action at 48th and Marshfield. This is the first year Back of the Yards has had a full-scale Hoops in the Hood Friday night basketball league with food, fun and introductions to service agencies visiting different blocks all summer long.

Speaking as a neighborhood resident, I'm delighted to see this getting off the ground in Back of the Yards. I was out there myself last Friday night and can say firsthand that it was a lot of fun and clearly a new experience for kids and families. Many of the kids couldn't believe they could just go up and get a hot dog, an icie or a bag of popcorn for free. Neighbors not just from the target block but from a three-block radius stopped by. Some of the kids on my own block played for a team sponsored by the UNION Impact Center. Part of the point of the effort is to bridge the various divisions of the neighborhood--race, ethnicity, language, gang territories--and I'm very proud that my neighbors on the UNION Impact team were part of one of the few where a diverse group of kids were playing on the same team.

In recent years the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council has gone through some transition in leadership and focus, and "Hoops" is helping the council raise its profile in the neighborhood in a new and positive way. Martinez's story quoted BYNC executive director Craig Chico giving a key stat to measure the impact to date: "If you want to measure our success with a number, we've served over 600 hot dogs each week."

Youth Noise: B-Ball on the Block Is Back

Got an email from Cesar Nuñez this morning turning me on to a $500 fundraising challenge for Beyond the Ball, the group that's using basketball and soccer to bring youth onto the streets on Friday evenings in Little Village and North Lawndale.

BBall on the Block has been going for three years now and it's great to see that they're still innovating – adding soccer, for instance – and that they've connected with Youth Noise and Nike on this fundraiser. They need another 32,600 clicks to get that $500, and you can click all you want, so get on over there and help make it happen.

Trina Chiasson, Chicago blogger for Youth Noise Play City, caught some great quotes in that video above. Here's one of them:

"I grew up in this neighborhood, I've seen a lot of violence and poor choices," says Ken Alvarado, soccer director. "And then just getting older, you see that there aren't that many opportunities to escape those places."

BBall on the Block provides that opportunity: "You know you're safe, you know there is nothing to worry about, we have food, you have nice people working here too, so it's just a blessing for the community. And I'm definitely taking it as a blessing for myself as well."

Not to be missed: Hoops in the Hood Finals

A terrific example of community development in action will be on display this Saturday afternoon at Seward Park in Chicago (401 W. Division at Orleans) when youth and adults from seven neighborhoods come together for the 2008 Hoops in the Hood Cross-City Finals, a basketball program that is about so much more than sports.

Hoops is a direct response to violence on the streets of our city. It is a structured, well-organized way to engage local kids and young adults in a safe and nurturing environment, on the very streets where they might feel unsafe at other times or under different circumstances. The Resurrection Project in Pilsen started its Friday night basketball league 10 years ago, setting up courts on different blocks each week, and in the past two years the concept has spread to a network of seven neighborhoods.

Teams will fight it out for trophies after an opening ceremony at 1 p.m., with the first-round games at 1:30 in three divisions: peewee (ages 8 to 10), minor (11 to 14) and major (15 to 19). Semi-final and final rounds will be followed by the championship game at 4 p.m.

About 400 participants will come from West Haven, Little Village, Pilsen, North Lawndale, Humboldt Park, Englewood and Logan Square. There'll be food, arts and crafts, and plenty of good feeling as kids and adults come together from across gang lines, neighborhoods and cultures. The Chicago Police Department is a key partner across all the leagues and will be on the scene as usual.

The photos here are from last year's tournament and were taken by Juan Francisco Hernandez; the video below, by Sarahmaria Gomez and Alex Fledderjohn of TuMultimedia, gives a great overview of what the league is all about. (View a higher quality version here.)