Detroit Pistons Youth Academy basketball camp wraps up Friday at St. Joseph High School
BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich. -- More than 80 campers from across Southwest Michigan wrapped a two-day Detroit Pistons Youth Academy basketball camp Friday at St. Joseph High School, hosted by the Harbor Impact Foundation.
The event closed with a performance from the Pistons' Extreme Team Dunk Squad and an awards ceremony for campers.
Harbor Impact Foundation founder Rodney Alexander Jr. said the camp was built to bridge the communities of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor through basketball, a sport he said he grew up with and felt a deep personal connection to. He said the goal was to bring both communities together around a shared passion, highlighting what they have in common rather than their differences.
"It's always been about basically bringing that bridge together. I mean, understanding we're different, but we also the same. I've been on both sides of the bridge, so I kind of know how to understand both sides of people, and we all actually wanted to know how to basically how to coexist and actually how to get along and understand we can do great things together."
Jordan Lee, a camper who was named the week's MVP, said he didn't know anyone before the week began but left having made numerous new friendships. He said the experience was as much about personal growth as it was about improving on the court. "I was making all new friends. Everybody's so cool here. It's just easy to get with the environment."
Campers received t-shirts and other memorabilia throughout the event. Families of campers attended alongside camp staff, and several were seen playing basketball together with campers after the formal camp activities concluded.
The dunk squad's performance drew loud crowd reaction from campers and family members in attendance. "It was crazy. They were they were just doing crazy stuff, doing windmills and stuff. It was crazy," said Lee.
Harbor Impact Foundation was founded in 2022 to connect the St. Joseph and Benton Harbor communities through basketball and has since grown to include AAU programming, camps, and mentoring, helping more than 30 students earn college scholarships.
Alexander Jr. said "I didn't do this by myself. I took my team, myself, Linda, Brian, Jana, Kevin. It took all of us to actually make this happen." (ABC57's Brian Conybeare is the President of the Harbor Impact Foundation.)
As for why people should come to the camp next year, Lee said "It's super fun, super. You can do a lot here. You'll get better and every day. The coaches are super cool, nice, all that stuff, and you'll learn a lot about basketball."