It’s hard to believe it was just one year ago this month the students at Edmond North High School gave the Roosevelt Middle School community in south Oklahoma City one of the greatest love offerings we may ever see. Through their efforts, BALTO 2016 (Bring A Light to Others) raised $708,748 to help rebuild the athletic fields at Roosevelt MS, giving this exceptional group of young students a sports complex they will enjoy for many years to come. Talk about love in action!
Love. It’s a powerful word, and an even more powerful concept. Whether expressed verbally or through a simple act of kindness, we know love makes anything possible. It’s one of the reasons Oklahoma City Public Schools district director of athletics, Keith Sinor, and his coaches adopted “Lead with Love” as one of their core coaching covenants. Call it encouragement. Or belief. Or support. Or even tough love. Love comes in all shapes and sizes.
In our Fields & Futures world, we are quick to tell people, “The field is just the excuse.” It is simply the catalyst that starts the process of positive change. When young students see a single individual or entire community investing in them, something special happens. They smile bigger, walk taller and most importantly, start seeing things through a different lens … where obstacles become new opportunities and “I can’t” becomes “perhaps I can.”
Think about it for just a minute. Imagine being a young student that has grown up without quality playing fields. Sports is not your thing. Why would it be? You don’t have a safe place to practice, you have to go somewhere else to play games and you don’t have a campus you’re proud to call home. It doesn’t mean you don’t participate in other activities or find other ways to make friends but you’ve missed the opportunity to benefit from everything sports can offer. You have no team to call your own. You’re just not feeling it.
Now, fast forward to a different moment in time. You now walk onto your school campus and see beautiful new athletic fields and shiny new equipment, knowing an entire community rallied to give you and your friends your own home field advantage. You hear more kids talking about joining a team or cheering on their friends. You hear the coach that was going to leave has decided to stay. You feel a renewed sense of pride and hope in your school and community. Someone tells you that Cleats for Kids can provide free cleats or whatever equipment you need to play the game. You see the Wes Welker Foundation working with your coaches to improve a weight room, or hear of someone who donated new soccer balls to the team or uniforms for your cheerleaders. You hear people talking about the new OKC PAL Youth League using your new fields to help grow their rosters, so now your younger siblings can join one of those teams and be better prepared to play sports in middle school. You feel the love.
During the month of February, we hope you’ll join us in celebrating the power of love. Go cheer on a kid. Thank a coach. Ask how you can help. Pat someone on the back and tell them “great job!” Look a kid in the eye and say, “I believe in you.” There are a million ways to let our kids know they’re loved and valued. And we know, unequivocally, they will rise to the occasion!
Thank you for supporting Fields & Futures and the thousands of students served by this mission. With your help, we will continue IGNITING SUCCESS – one field, one coach, one student at a time.
Much love,
Fields & Futures