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When Tasha Myers stumbled upon Tennis Center South a few years ago, it didn’t look like the organization wanted to run an after-school tennis program.
The roof of the center had to be replaced. Garbage littered the ground. The landscaping was overgrown.
But Myers saw the clutter. He felt there was an opportunity to connect with the local community.
He and other members of the Operation Reachan research organization, designed to train and serve the local community, went to work. They cleaned up the plots before knocking on doors along Oak Forest Drive to get local youth involved.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to do much active recruitment. The children were curious about who cleaned their stumbling blocks.
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One day, members of Operation Reach cleaned up nearby when a group of children dropping basketball on the tennis court caught their attention. Members in need of a break joined the Thekids.
When the members returned to work, the children dropped the basketball and followed. Not only did they help clean the center, but they also exchanged basketballs for rackets.
Kids and teens continue to help, Myers said. They have invested in keeping the center well maintained. And when someone they don’t recognize hangs around downtown, the kids sound like they’re alerting and calling Myers.
The neighborhood is not immune to crime, Myers said, but the community is working together to make it safer.
“It’s in our best interest to reduce crime in that community,” he said.
Operation Reachh has been able to work towards this by collaborating with another non-profit organization, Operation Good.
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Over the past 10 years, Operation Good has done similar work to Operation Reach, but on a larger scale. Operation Good focuses on making larger teams safer and cleaner in the community and encourages young people to participate in their southern Jackson neighborhood.
Dear Henry member Ira Henry knows this firsthand. She works with young people to clean up the community in southern Jackson and providing assistance to the elderly.
Gitone Dixon, another member of Operation Good, said since the group was formed, instead of people hanging around and throwing trash everywhere, they are proud to help keep the neighborhood clean.
“You see more kids coming into the park, you see more people bringing their kids to the park and sitting and playing with them,” Dixon said. “People are coming out more.”
On Thursday, a group of good Mission staff and local teenagers picked up debris from West McDowell Road and poured weeds, grass and brush in front of abandoned moths. Dixon said cleaning up some outdated codecs takes spells.
For Karl Hurst, 19, it means a lot to see the involvement of teenagers and younger people in community work instead of crime.
“It’s the best thing ever. Because I thought I was the only one doing it. At the age of 13 I was really the only one here, but now we have more of them,” Hurst said, adding his neighbors and nephew were now also helpful.
Operation Good employees have raised their own funds to buy equipment to take care of the area and pay for the help of the young people. They are looking to buy a lawn mower that would make it easier to maintain some overgrown items.
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Youth summer tennis camp
Operation Reach is currently hosting a summer camp program at a tennis center for children ages 5-14. The program will continue on July 20.
The organization will host a new event in downtown in August, Friday night under the lights, Myers said. Every Friday at 7pm, the lights on the tennis courts shine brightly, and the organization invites downtown students and the community to play tennis, enjoy barbecues and hangouts.
“It’s about reaching out to young people in the local community,” Myers said. “There is so much work to be done in the local community. I believe that if we, as a village, give them power … then it will shorten the idle time they have to get into trouble.”
Do you have a News Tip? Contact Gabriela Szymanowska at [email protected], on Twitteror at 601-215-4292.
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