Ray City’s La Iglesia Missionera El Shaddai Starts Youth Basketball
By Carol A. Gasser Moore
BERRIEN COUNTY, Georgia – Hoops and a ball to shoot are found wherever youth in throughout the United States. Spectator, young athlete or professional athlete, all love basketball, regardless of their age. Basketball is a sport easily played alone or with one or more others. The game is adaptable, easy to learn and fun. It’s the kind of sport that a community can get behind. In the Ray City community, the La Iglesia Missionera El Shaddai group has started a youth basketball program.
Any youth interested in playing basketball should show up at the Ray City Basketball Court (Miller Street and Highway-129/Patten Avenue) each Saturday at 6:00 p.m. There will one or more adult members of the La Iglesia Missionera El Shaddai Church working with those youth playing basketball.
The group recognizes that when a community puts in the effort and resources necessary to support youth sports, it provides opportunities for those youth. Sports bring people together and youth basketball can give Ray City one thing to look forward to and care about. It just takes a few determined people with a ball and it creates a real opportunity for everyone as well as the Ray City community.
Youth basketball is a way to channel all those good intentions into something that brings youth and adults together. Working together builds trust, which only serves to strengthen a community.
Local youth need a safe and neutral environment to interact with one another. Playing basketball is an easy way for those interactions to occur. It promotes healthy competition and teaches discipline and good sportsmanship.
Left unchecked youth can be rough on one another. Basketball provides an excellent outlet to mash that negativity and work out youth relationships, while on the neutral sports court!
Adults can learn from those youth as well! Being responsible for them will help the adults in the community stay in the loop about what’s going on with their children. In turn, youth can experience each other and adults as being reliable figures that they can lean on. Putting in the work helps everyone develop new skills which can be carried outside of the Ray City community.
In addition to working together, and experiencing a healthy neutral environment, local youth can improve their health. Over eating and an inactive lifestyle can take a toll on a local community. Community youth basketball can change that.
Basketball is a contact sport that demands lots of energy. Even if not all kids are gifted in the sport, it is a good exercise. It’s an excellent way to help our youth develop their coordination skills, endurance, and mobility.
In turn, adult leadership set examples for the youth with which they work. It’s a productive way to help the community, play with the kids, and get some exercise in.
La Iglesia Missionera el Shaddai is located at 180 North Street, Ray City. As a service oriented community group, they are excited to encourage Ray City and surrounding area youth to come together, have fun and apply the benefits of playing basketball with them.
TO learn more about La Iglesia Missionera el Shaddai, go on-line to https://www.facebook.com/p/Iglesia-Misionera-El-Shaddai-GA-100083134842242/.
