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News 12 Staff

228spotlightnj2_2026-02-28-11-46-19

So the first picture here you have at our um local food pantry is called Provision Commerce Pantry where the kids volunteer. This is our annual car wash. It's a fundraiser and then um we actually won an award for being in the Memorial Day parade. Congratulations. Thank you. Our Thanksgiving event, our community dinner, we partner with organizations to feed, um, families back to. The food pantry, we always try to encourage the youth that it's not just about sports that we wanna make sure that they are giving back to the community as well. This was a recent, uh, game we went to at Monmouth University. So we and one picture we don't have in here is from our back to school event that we have every, it's normally the Sunday before Labor Day where we give about 200 backpacks away filled with school supplies and um I'm still a licensed cosmetologist and then one of our coaches is a barber so out of reflections too in Frio Township we started. What are we going in year 5, I think this year will be, I think year 5, Coach Jamar, shout out to Coach Jamar, he came up with this idea because he used to collect school supplies and he was like, how about we do an event where we give away backpacks and do kids' hair for free. So now we have 3 locations as of last year. It's, it's just expanded over the years. We do a pop-up at Freoboro Police Station. Um, at GNG Barbershop in Freoboro and then Reflections too, and we do about over 100 kids here for free and giving away their backpacks we've had, um. The Monmouth County Park System came and did games. Vampire penguin comes away and gives ice cream out to the kids, and it's just a great day for our community and for us to be able to give back off the court, right? Because, you know, as much as we love to be in the in the gym, we definitely love to use our other talents to be able to, um, you know, just give back and inspire. Kids to be able to participate in everything that we do. And if you're just tuning in, we are speaking with We Are the Future based in Freehold. I get the sense that you all love what you're doing here. Absolutely, yes, we're blessed to be able to do what we're we do. We're definitely blessed just to see the smiles on the kids' faces is the the most the like first time they come in they're like, How you doing, coach? I'm like, and when they don't speak it's like. No parents, wait a minute, we want them to speak so they have a voice, and that's the first thing they do. And that's to, I noticed that the building of the custody, yeah, encouraged to actually speak to somebody and say hello, just to say hello, how your day goes. So it's really a blessing. Some, some of the kids don't get that, you know, even if they have both parents, one parent guardian at home, sometimes they don't ask them how their day was, how was their week. So we're blessed to have the partnership with our um Frillborough School System. Shout out to Park Avenue.

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228spotlightnj3_2026-02-28-12-45-38

My guests are with We Are the Future based in Freehold Wendell, Victor, Sasha, and Rebecca. You were talking about the two gyms that you all have. Go ahead, tell us more. Um, so our current program for every Friday, um, we have two gyms. The school has 2 gyms, so we, we break out beginners and advanced in the first hour and then the second hour the beginners, they leave and then we have the advanced, um, but Coach C is what we all call him, he can tell you about when we. First started at Saint Rose Gym and how we got there. Yeah, as you can see some of the pictures and shows that, uh, we're at Saint Rose, um, we started there in, uh, around COVID time. There was a limited space for gyms and, um, shout out to Mary at Saint Rose and she gave us an opportunity to use her gym space, uh, and that was our first, uh, calling. And then we messed up with our intermediate where we didn't have to pay anything, you know, made it life easier because we were coming out of pocket like $5000 a year, you know, just to, uh, pay for the cost of the gym. Then we got our talented young ladies into the role and they, we got the, uh, free gym and access and it works out great for us. How do you all raise money to keep this organization going? Who I ask. I go to the store. If I buy pizza from your pizzeria, I go and ask. I give a donation letter. I walk around fun to nursing home, nurse funeral homes and stuff like that, and I just give a donation. They give it, they give it, they don't read them word of mouth, word of mouth and, and people see who we are and what we're doing and what we're doing. We're, we're literally everywhere, um, we're connected individually to other organizations as well, so, um, I think that in itself when people start asking other people like we just received donations this past, you know, couple of months from. People that just said I asked this person what local nonprofit you have and they mentioned us so we're blessed to just for one to be able to wake up every day and do the work, right? because you gotta be able to do the work and to have people be able to witness it. um, I like the way you said that people just mentioned us so your name is out there out there and people want to help, yes, yes. So we, um, as this is my uncle Wendell, right, so Uncle Wendell, Coach C actually were my coaches many, many moons ago, um, and then in 2019, that's when the YMCA separated from Freehold Borough. They had this idea of starting this program and then Uncle Wendell for a couple of years of. Can you help, can you help, can you help? And then eventually 2021, that's when I got on board, that's when Becca got on board and we became the 501c3 nonprofit.

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News 12’s Della Crews spoke to the founders and personnel to learn more. 

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