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Health & Fitness

Public Access TV Producer: "Neighbors"

A while back I worked with this young man in a summer program at a local park in Westchester. Though there were about twelve young men in his group, he was the only one who showed he had some manners.

A while back I worked with this young man in a summer program at a local park in Westchester. Though there were about twelve young men in his group, he was the only one who showed he had some manners. Somehow me and the young man got teamed up together and I was glad because he also had good work ethics.

On our breaks we’d find a bench and we’d sit and talk, he told me that he had gotten into a little trouble and got sent away. I couldn’t understand how this handsome, caramel skinned, clean cut, young man sitting beside me could do anything out of line. His shoes strings were tied and he wore his pants up on his hip, what could he have done to get put away in juvie, I wondered but didn’t ask.

Half the summer was over before the young man told me he had won Chess game championships. I told him I was trying to find a Chess coach to teach the game to a few kids I was mentoring at that time and he agreed to teach them. The next day I brought my Chess set into work and we started playing Chess at lunch. During one of our games he shared with me that since learning to play Chess in juvie he’s changed his way of thinking.

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Well that’s what I was trying to do with the young people I was mentoring at that time, change their “At Risk” ways of thinking. I had enrolled them in basic piano lesson through the city’s recreation department, not just to learn the music but for independent right brain, left brain functions. Then I gotten everyone of them library cards and introduced them to audio books to help build their vocabulary and help them with pronunciation of words - but I couldn’t find a Chess program for my mentees, to teach them consequences and actions, and succeeding within one’s limitations.

My young summer coworker told me that since leaving juvie he hadn’t played Chess much because he doesn’t know where to go or of anyone outside of juvie who could play the game, other than in NYC. Coaching my mentees proved to be a challenge for my young summer coworker because they couldn’t retain the basic movement of the Chess pieces and soon the lessons stopped.

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So, I started thinking about how to make the basics of Chess easy to learn. Divine intervention helped me put the music from the Aretha Franklins song RESPECT to the movement of the Chess pieces. I wrote up a six weeks, summer camp/afterschool Chess program proposal. The budget included the cost for, ten complete cardboard Chess sets, supplies to make a huge Chessboard and fabric for costumes representing the Chess pieces. I would facilitate the program and pay the Chess coach out of pocket if I had too, but I got nowhere with the proposal.

No matter, now with the show NEIGHBORS we’re getting the message of the wonders of Chess, the Chess song out. My summer workmate from long ago said Chess changed his life, and me meeting him and listening to his story all summer had changed my life’s goal.

NEIGHBORS is on public access Ch. 88 on Wednesdays 6 pm and Sunday mornings at 8:30 am. If you get a chance please “Like” us at https://www.facebook.com/neighborstv
and our Matthew at https://www.facebook.com/YourCruiseTA.

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