PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Baseball is returning to Germantown after a community leader built up a club to get kids off the streets and into team sports. The Germantown Warriors have joined the Chestnut Hill Youth Sports Club rotation, and this past weekend was their season opener.
"Germantown was missing baseball, and that’s something we wanted to offer the communities," said Haneef Hill, who formed Urban Youth Kings and Queens in 2016 after seeing incidents of street violence rise as neighborhood youth programs declined.
"With all the violence we have going on in our community and our streets, it’s critical that we get children involved in structured programs," Hill said.
"I think it's important for us to find constructive ways not only to get them involved but keeping them involved."
Hill grew up playing baseball and knows for himself the benefits of organized sports, and he says he wants to offer that same opportunity for growth to Germantown youth. Urban Youth Kings and Queens created the Germantown Warriors to teach neighborhood kids some important lessons.
"Organized sports will teach children a lot. They learn self discipline, team work and how to work in groups. They learn sportsmanship," Hill said.
"That ability to see things through and also overcome a lot of obstacles. So they learn more than playing the game. They learn the ways of life."
Together with the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, Hill got to work they and made it happen.
He said they found some abandoned fields and fixed them up. And now the Germantown Warriors are sending two teams to the Chestnut Hill Youth Sports Club rotation in the Majors (ages 10-12) and Rookie (ages 7-8) divisions.
Hill says there are still a few spots open. Visit Urban Youth Kings and Queens online for more information.