Not Just The Same Old Ball Game:
P.A.L. Lets Kids Be Kids
In Southeast Queens

BY DENISE DeJESUS

There is a revolution going on in Hollis that has put teenagers to work on the front line, brought the police department on board as a positive force, and given children a place to spend the long days of summer learning from their slightly older peers.

They call it the Foster Laurie Family Preservation Center.

The Police Athletic League (PAL) along with Assemblywoman Barbara Clarke, founder of Community Care Development, has established a full-time community services center in conjunction with the Foster-Laurie Family Preservation Center .

"I have the highest number of children living in foster care for the state," said Clarke. "The center offers services, recreation activities and training. Participation for young people who age out of foster care is critical."

The PAL-Family Preservation Center is a recreation and educational building established to allow community members immediate access to information on living services; including health care, teen management, summer camps, educational advancement, technical training, housing and food services. Staffed with Summer Youth Employment Program workers and volunteers, the PAL Center is able to offer structured programs including arts and crafts, homework help, music education and sports.

Living just blocks from the center and seeing the advantages of community based programs, Aurelia Miller, administrative assistant for the full-time PAL Family Preservation Center, has involved each of her four children in the program’s summer camp.

Her eldest son Travis McPhun, 18, a Morgan State freshman studying pediatrics, began his camp experience at age 8 and is currently serving as Head Counselor.

Quiani, Elliott and Evelia Miller (ages 7, 10 and 16, respectively) all joined the camp at six years old. "It’s fun and we also have educational things," said Elliott Miller. "And we get to leave on a lot of trips like to the Bronx Zoo, swimming two times a week, Coney Island and Splish Splash."

"It’s a wonderful program. I don’t think any kid should be doing nothing at home all summer," said Miller. "Some parents can’t afford Dorney Park and Great Adventure. These trips can supplement a wonderful vacation."

"Hang in there," Officer Freddy Brooks adivses children and teens feeling growing pains. "Sometimes a coach can mean just as much as a parent. I never had a father, the closest and best I got was my baseball coach and I’m still concerned if my mother thanked him properly for all the work he did with me and my brother."

Queens PAL Coordinator officer Freddy Brooks knows the value of positive role models. PRESS Photo by Ira Cohen

During the summer months, the Police Athletic League has established summer playsites, staffed by PAL personnel and officers.

The sites are come and go facilities held in neighborhood school yards, parks and other open-spaces and city properties.

From 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, neighborhood children can gather at their leisure and in the safety of their community to play board games, create arts and crafts, participate in organized sport and receive dance instruction from trained specialists.

For the past eight years Brooks has served as an agent for social responsibility. "One day, at my desk, I started thinking about a [base]ball park that was underutilized, so I tried to start a ball league. Two years later it was successful," said Brooks. "It just struck me to do something decent with the community."

Year round, as the coordinator for the Queens PAL program Brooks monitors the progress of these playsites, and has taken a personal interest in the community by running various seasonal sports leagues open to both boys and girls.

Under his supervision, the PAL hosts the Raphell Sims-Lakowitz Memorial Fall Basketball tournament, now in its sixteenth year.

On average it attracts a membership of 250 girls between the ages of ten and seventeen.

The winter brings the continuation of a girls league along with the St. Clair Boys Basketball tournament that includes over 120 players ages 8 to twelve, also supervised by Brooks.

PAL offers an afterschool program available two nights a week from October until April at the Creedmore Psychiatric Center, building 51. From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday, and all students interested in afterschool homework help, crafts and sports are welcome to participate in the program.

Southeast Queens summer playsite locations include:

• PS 207 159-15 88 Street Howard Beach
• PS 40 109-12 Union Hall Street
• South Jamaica Houses: South Road/107 Avenue
• Montobella Park: Springfield Blvd./East Gate Ave.
• PS 140 116 Avenue/116 Street
• PS 38 135-21 241 Street
• O’Connel Park: Murdock Ave. between 198/199

"Services are there," said Assemblywoman Clarke. "Not all are in place, but they’re being developed. [The Center] is open and there to service the community. We welcome input on what they would like to contribute or change. Anything like this is only possible with community involvement."

Later this month, the Center plans to kick off a police mentoring program for at-risk teens; including those students with low grade point averages, previous run-ins with truancy, behavior and administrative problems.

During these sessions, teens are able to comfortably confront, work out and question personal issues with someone other than a parent or guardian.

In September the PAL, the Family Preservation Center (FPC) and Planned Parenthood will co-sponsor a program of preventive counseling designed to combat sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy, Jacquelyn Whittaker Multi-Service Coordinator of FPC told the PRESS.

Through peer interaction, teens will be able to voice concerns dealing with sexual readiness, safe-sex, birth control and condom availability.

GED training class, a diploma equivalency program, is also scheduled to begin in September.

Imperative to former students who have left school for reasons including teen pregnancy, lack of interest and the need to bring income into their home, this program will foster self-esteem and insert an educationally fit mindset.

A seniors program is already in place at the FPC and has recently received three years of full-funding, said Assemblywoman Clarke.

A part of those funds will be dedicated to help Seniors work together to form an intergenerational day care program for children ages 1 –5.

This program is designed to be an enormous help to working parents and members of the forming Single Parent Network, a group that allows single parents to come together for support and access to assistance services that can ease the complications of raising a child alone.

In hopes of inspiring the continuation of joint police and community involvement, the PAL secured land in 1991 which they were planning to build an exclusive PAL, said Yvonne Riddick.

"They never came up with the matching funds so they had to form a partnership with the school construction authority and the Board of Education [to include] an 800 seat law enforcement and public safety school, " Reddick said.

Although the School Construction Authority was not able to confirm the project, Richard Napolitano PAL Facilities Manager said the project is currently in design phases.