Basketball Shoes for Juvenile Inmates
The Orange County Jail is
currently housing 30 to 35 boys (ages 13 to 17) who are being tried for very
serious charges. They had no shoes so they couldn't play basketball or do
anything to burn off some energy. We minister to these juveniles each month and
I can tell you they have a lot of pent-up energy. The program director for
these boys found an officer who is willing to run a shoe library so the kids
can check out a pair and go to the rec yard a few
times a week. The hold-up was they had no shoes. That is where we came in. The
Pray Central Florida Jail Ministry has collected basketball shoes and money to
buy them so these kids can get some exercise. Nearly all of the shoes were new
in the box Shaq brand basketball shoes, thanks to the
many generous donations we received for this project.
The program director for the
juveniles (John Richter) told us how much they appreciate these shoes and that
the program is now up and running. The kids love being able to play basketball
and the officers like it because it works off some of the kids
energy and they can use it as a reward for good behavior. At our last session
with the juveniles I asked them to write some thank you notes and here is what
some of them had to say.
"You have really done
something that normally other people wouldn't do for us." "...shows
that I should have faith because ever since I got locked up I was praying to
God to find a way for me to go outside ... so you practically answered that
prayer." - Baldomero
"We all thought that
people did not care about us but you all have brought us back to where we need
to be. Now we can accept that life is never over and that God still loves us no
matter what we have done in the past." - Ronald
I asked John (Juvenile
Program Director) if he had any prayer requests and he asked us to pray
for a juvenile work release program. The kids would work off-site, get their
GED and receive life skills training. This would help equip these kids to get a
job and break the cycle of being in and out of jail. He also told us there were
no residential programs for the juveniles, even Teen
Challenge is 18 and over. I called Teen Challenge and they did say there were
two other affiliated programs in other parts of the state that were for ages 13
to 17 but he didn't know of anything else locally. This
is a taller order than some shoes, but let's pray about it and see what
God does.
George Kern
praycf@juno.com
407-245-1132
Total number of shoes donated to the Jail (as of
31
Special thanks to Alice and
Jim Johnson of One Source Roofing for donating most of the money for this
project. Donations were also received from
Shoes donated (pairs) through Pray
4
Money Donated:
$390
Basketball Shoes Purchased with that money (all were on sale for $15 or
less):
27