Booster Club Formed to Save Middle School Sports

School sports in East Providence is engrained in our community and as much about being a Townie as the Crescent Park Carousel, the much publicized Sabin’s Point Bonfire or any other East Providence tradition, many of which we losing one by one. That’s why it strikes at the heart to see athletic programs under the hatchet, whether its middle school sports, freshman programs at the high school or whole teams such as golf.

Those who know me know that I’m not an athlete. In school, my pursuits related to technology, competitive speaking and debating, student government and similar activities. I was often disappointed that in a school, those more academic programs got little notice and support compared to sports. So you may wonder why I’ve been so outspoken about sports lately. While I am not an athlete, I have learned the importance that these programs have on the children that are involved with them. My great uncle and godfather was Alfred ‘Big Al’ Santie, many in East Providence, particularly in the Riverside area know him for his work with youth sports, including little league, pop warner football (former Riverside Raiders) and CYO basketball. While he didn’t coach interscholastic sports, he mentored these same young adults from the time he met them as young kids in pop warner to the time they were high school football captains and into adulthood. I didn’t always understand it at the time, and I was sometimes frustrated that I seemingly had so little in common with him, but I realize now the extent of the difference he made in the lives of generations of Riverside kids. So when a high school friend of mine explained to me both the condition of the middle school sport programs currently and the (at the time) proposed cuts that B&E had recommended to cut the program entirely, I felt the need to step up. We won the fight at the school committee - however the budget commission sent in by the state reversed that decision and removed middle school sports from the budget.

After the cut, many parents and community leaders stepped up, held protests and community meetings. However, once statements were made by certain politicians, obfuscating the issue of whether sports were cut or not, we lost a lot of community momentum, despite the fact that it was eliminated from all the budgetary documents released by the Budget Commission.

Existing athletics organizations were not equipped to step up to raise the $106,000 needed to maintain middle school sports, due to their legal and tax setups. It became clear that this unparalleled challenge required a new group setup to meet this unprecedented need. While certain individuals embarked on their own organization, others embarked on another group, called the East Providence Middle Schools Athletics Booster Club (EPMSABC). Both are still fledgling and neither is in position at this time to pay for the fall season right around the corner, which will cost approximately $35,000. While I don’t sit on their board, I have worked with the directors on setting up the Booster Club and understand what they are trying to accomplish, not just saving sports in the short term, but also raising the quality of the program, a monumental undertaking, but I have confidence that Townies can achieve it.

I encourage my fellow Townies to support the EP Middle School Booster Club with donations, volunteer work and whatever other help you can give. You can learn more at www.epmsboosters.org or http://www.facebook.com/EPMSABC or e-mail contact@epmsboosters.org.

I also encourage all townies that care about these programs to contact new Budget Commission Chair Diane Brennan and let her know that sports funding should be restored, at-least in-part. If the Budget Commission can work with community leaders, we can save these programs without having quite so daunting a hurdle for the fledgling community groups looking to support them.