Washington Redskins’ Niles Paul and Joshua Morgan Help Raise Money For Homeless Youth

UPPER MARLBORO, MD –  The Code Blue; Reviving a Generation Campaign successfully hosted a Hoops 4 Homeless Youth All Star Game, Saturday at Dr. Henry A. Wise High School. The event was led by  Prince George’s County resident and CEO of the Campaign, Jermaine Crawford, best known for his portrayal of Dukie Weems, a homeless teen; on the HBO award winning TV series, “The Wire.” Crawford received great help from his “All-Star Lineup” (full roster in the picture below) and even had a nice halftime performance by R&B singer/songwriter/musician and DMV native Reesa Renee.

Teenage homelessness is a rising epidemic locally and nationally.  It’s estimated that each year 1.8 million teens become homeless in the U.S. To my surprise, in a county I call home, more than 140 youth were identified homeless last year in Prince George’s County alone. With initiatives like Hoops 4 Homeless, that can and prayerfully will change.

A portion of proceeds from the event went to Promise Place, a 20-bed emergency teen shelter located in Seat Pleasant, MD; Prince George’s County. Promise Place is the first and only emergency teen shelter in Prince George’s County.

“I wanted to do an event that was just as exciting as it was helpful to the youth,” he told us. “I wanted to do something that our neighborhood could all join in on. I’ve had my own campaign for homeless youth for about seven years. I noticed a lot of people want to help, but there aren’t really innovative ways for people to get involved. So, we’re asking people to please buy the tickets and the tickets will go towards helping to keep the shelter for homeless youth in Prince Georges County open. So, even if you’re just buying tickets to have a good time, you’re definitely doing a good thing.”

Washington Redskins’ TE Niles Paul and WR Joshua Morgan participated in the event. “Just came out here to support my boy Jermaine Crawford to help raise funds for the homeless youth,” Morgan said.

Morgan came prepared wearing Superman socks. Although, unlike his QB Robert Griffin III — Josh wore them without a cape. So I asked, where’s the cape? Josh responded, “I left it on the court, now it’s time to leave it on the football field.”

In this game, everyone wins. It was for a great cause and local figures understood they needed to extend a hand and help make a difference.

“There’s a lot of people who are simply local community figures that wanted to be involved and we figured out ways to incorporate everyone inside this event,” said Jermaine Crawford. The county of Prince Georges has been so helpful with us — professional boxers who are from the area — Lamont and Anthony Peterson. They were both homeless at one time. So, when the word got out, they actually reached out to us to be a part of it.  There has been a lot of people locally who saw what we were trying to do and wanted to get involved. Anyone with the right heart to do it, I definitely want to incorporate them into what I’m doing.”

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(H/T to Brady (4 the Report) for the featured pictures)