Morehouse College is looking to increase community engagement with local youth and expand the Morehouse brand to schools, organizations and more. Under the leadership of the new athletic director and Morehouse alum, Harold Ellis, Morehouse Athletics are determined to strengthen their reputation of service in the local community.
“We’ve got to get our brand back,” Ellis said. “Our brand was tarnished for a little bit; we’re going to get that back and revise.”
On Saturday, The First Five Hundred initiative brought around 500 middle and high school students from across the metro Atlanta area and more to the football season home opener against Miles College.
The idea was started through the Morehouse College National Alumni Association (MCNAA), Morehouse Athletics and the YMCAs of Atlanta. College Campus Tours, The NFL Alumni Association, Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) and more brought kids and set up tents at the game.
The visiting students were given food and brief tours of the campus by student ambassadors. Throughout the day, they were able to meet a plethora of Morehouse and Spelman College student leaders, experience their first college football game and be exposed to HBCU culture. MCNAA and its partners plan on making this event an annual effort for each home opener for football season.
“We want to help build excitement and interest and access tour ever-evolving athletic program here at Morehouse,” Michael Levesque said.
Levesque is a Morehouse alum and the Executive Director for MCNAA and has led community engagement efforts all over the country for Morehouse. The partnership so far has included free YMCA memberships for Atlanta University Center students, plans for those students to help build YMCA playgrounds and future mentorship for grade school students.
“We will use this platform as a way to continue extending ourselves to say that we are a warming, welcoming and loving community over here at the Atlanta University Center,” he said.
Credit: Miles Pierre, The Maroon Tiger
Credit: Miles Pierre, The Maroon Tiger
The initiative brought versatile and diverse alumni from both colleges to create lasting relationships with grade school students. The Morehouse and Spelman communities also use these events as recruitment opportunities and display the quality of their graduates to young students.
Monteil Weeks is a Spelman alumna and a Vice President for the YMCAs of Metro-Atlanta. She helped orchestrate the First Five Hundred and is actively assisting in the partnership with Morehouse.
“It’s important to ensure that students who are still at the AUC are reminded of the importance of how we got to where we got and how our schools go to where they are,” she said.
Students filled the stands, participated in the game activities and were able to networking with current college students.
“The experience has definitely been different from high school. I love the energy and competition. It’s a good feeling being around your people,” Isaiah White said.
White is a senior at Heritage High School and an aspiring Morehouse student with a visual media interest. He had the opportunity to attend the game and shoot alongside professional and collegiate photographers on the sidelines. One of his biggest goals is to expand his network in photography and was able to start at Morehouse.
The Morehouse alumni say its their duty to understand how to give back and also feed into HBCU sports programs.
“I think everything should have a positive influence,” Alex Percival said.
Percival was the second ever Morehouse graduate to play in the NFL, drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals. He came to the game with other HBCU alum representing the NFL Alumni Association.
“We have to give a positive outlook that you can make it,” he said.
The Atlanta University Center is actively searching for unique opportunities and methods of outreach to extend campus and alumni resources to metro Atlanta youth.
“We’re going to bring in new ideas and new concepts and take this program to a different level,” Ellis said.
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