With each practice, with each shot, with each coaching moment, with every mentoring moment, the Pinellas Sheriff's PAL is not only building confidence and teamwork, it is building futures. I've been getting better over the years. I'mma keep balling and getting my in my life right so I can try to go to NBA one day and play on professional team. I would give myself a 9 and a half. Um I'm the best. You know, I always give it my all. My shots are incredible. NHL. For over 10 years, the Pinellas Sheriff's PAL has been changing lives, offering at-risk youth positive alternatives to gangs, crime, and substance abuse. PAL's education, recreation, and community service programs foster the development of leadership skills, good citizenship, and good sportsmanship. And it's fun. Colin Sawyers found his favorite sport at PAL. For me, seeing I'm a small kid, it's really good for me because it makes me feel that I I can defend myself. Colin's mother, Lisa, sees the benefit in team play, but knows it's not always about winning. I would agree winning is important, but I think losing is important, too. I mean, you have to know how to take a bad loss. And you know, if you get out on the ice and you're blown out, you know, 12 to nothing or whatever. Coach Mike Solona agrees that it's not all about hockey. To me, this is all about life lessons. Um you know, it's everyday discipline. You know, it everyday life requires discipline. Everyday ice play requires discipline. So, they kind of work hand in hand. They have rules of conduct to live by on the ice and off the ice. And hopefully they have a lot of fun while they do it. Meanwhile, at the PAL Sports Facility, Kevin and TJ spar in the PAL boxing ring under the watchful eye of Coach Bob Easterling. It's great. It's like bringing like my my dreams of what I always wanted to do, my passion, into life, you know? Because like I can't like go like somewhere and pay like $120 every month, you know? And you know, I think like a lot of people can't, and it gives us a great opportunity to like get what we need, you know, in life without all those heavy expenses. I've been in legal trouble before. I've I've been kicked out of schools and I don't I'm not that much of a school person. I moved here around a year ago and found this place and they said they had boxing, so I've always loved fighting, so I decided to come and box because I already know I've ruined just about every thing I could do in life school-wise, so this is a good opportunity for me. I can teach a kid how to throw a punch, how to slip a punch. I can't teach them heart. Either they got it or they don't. And uh we got some kids with some heart, and that's exciting. I've been in law enforcement for 20 years. I'm retired law enforcement, and I believe strongly in this gives kids a chance to realize their potential. It lets them build self-confidence, self-worth. Uh kids that take drugs, kids that kids that commit suicide, all those kids have very low self-esteem. And what this facility does, it allows them to see what they're really made of. The PAL Sports Facility is in the greater Lowell area and uniquely located to serve a broad youth population who are often coping with serious problems at home, at school, and around the neighborhood. PAL staff embrace the challenge and look for ways to make a difference. Typically, there's not a lot of parental involvement in their life, and that is where I'm able to, I guess, assist most as far as being a a mentor, or role model, etc. If something is a important to the child that you're talking to, you make it important to yourself, and they know if you're faking it or not. And if you build rapport with them, even if you have nothing in common with them, just still enough to where they feel like you care about them, that will be sufficient to begin to possibly impact their life. The original Police Athletic League began in New York over 70 years ago and was designed to forge a stronger bond between between youth and law enforcement. Today, Pinellas Sheriff's deputies make time to visit and schedule classes on personal safety, bullying, and for mentoring, and maybe just some time to talk about whatever the kids want to talk about. This PAL is a one of the best places but best things that ever happened out here for the the children. Now these kids have somewhere to go, have somewhere to be, rather than just hanging out by the uh the bars or the or the clubs. These kids have a good opportunity to stay in school and do the right thing and hopefully go to college someday. Homework help and tutoring are important PAL programs. A PAL goal is to improve a child's academic progress and keep kids in school. It's a nice place to get all this homework done. It's a great place, and if you have kids I recommend them I recommend bringing them here cuz there's a lot of things that they can do for you. Um one thing is that if your child needs help with homework or anything, um Joshua or Andrew will be more than happy to help you. They help me. They don't give me the answer, they just help me. Like they help me get the answer. We have kids who have improved their grades over the time that I've been here. We have kids who now are um involved with jobs, publics, garages, uh shoe stores, to name a few, and they're only 16, 15 years old. So, uh the whole point of PAL is to get kids off the streets and and keep them involved with other things besides what's going on in the neighborhood. The Sheriff's PAL is associated with the Pinellas Sheriff's Office and is a non-profit which relies on donations, grants, and individual contributions to maintain the program. To keep kids here and keep programs developing and it's you have to pay people to work here. So, we need money to pay for people so we can continue to add programs on. Uh, we want to we just signed a lease for a baseball field. We want to have a baseball program. We're looking into get a football field so we can have a football program. Uh, and that takes time, effort, and money and people. So, obviously, if we want to continue to grow the program and help more kids and reach out to more kids, we're going to need money to to do that. We need all the help that we can get to keep PAL open. You guys without PAL, there'll be nothing. All All these kids will be on the in jail, doing drugs, doing everything. It's a chance to help a child grow, learn, and achieve. It's a path to a safer community by directing youth away from the road of violence, crime, and substance abuse. By supporting the Pinellas Sheriff's PAL, it's a chance to give back. We have raised quite a few generations of children through PAL that are now coming back and giving back. They're teachers and firefighters and of course police officers and just productive citizens of the community. I love PAL. I love PAL. I love PAL. I love PAL. I love PAL. We love PAL!