Number of Participants: 16
Hours Donated: 10
Value of Time Served: $1,352
Event Type: Children & Youth
Sport: Football
School: Dover High School
Date: March 23, 2024
Location:
Dover High School
New York 22, Dover Plains
NY
About:
On March 23rd, Dover Football and Cheerleading hosted a youth clinic for our local community in hopes of connecting our young Dragons to a local Pop Warner program out of Millbrook. Dover has been trying to rebuild both the football and cheerleading programs over the last few years. In 1997 our Football Team won the NYS Football Championship and in 2019 the Varsity Cheerleading team won the Section 9 Championship for the first time, leading the way for the team to continue to win another two championships. Dover may be a small town, but we are a town that works hard to be our best, and to work together to uplift all of those around us. Over the last few years, similarly to schools across the state, we have been struggling without a local feed program. Our Varsity athletes identified that without feeder programs, our local athletes are not able to get the opportunities to join football or cheerleading hindering the development of Varsity programs. In an effort to address this concern, Dover Football and Cheerleading worked together to bring in the closest Pop Warner program, the Northern Dutchess Raiders, to come into our clinic to host a table. This clinic was organized to support the local families by having the cheerleading and football clinic at the same time, in the same building, to allow families to be there to support their children. Many families had one child at the cheerleading clinic, another child at the football clinic, and they were able to meet with the Pop Warner program to get information/register in one location. In addition, Coach Jones, the Varsity Football coach has been working with the Northern Dutchess Raiders clinics connecting our youngest Dover Dragons to their growing program. Our hopes are to eventually provide a youth program within our community to provide more opportunities to our local dragons.
At our March 23rd clinic, we had over 18 Varsity Athletes volunteer their time on their spring break, to come in and lead this clinic. In addition, we have roughly 6 Varsity coaches and 6 parents volunteer their time as well to support this clinic. With the support of Coach Jones, Coach Egan-Thorpe, the Dover Athletic Department, and myself, we were able to get 40 of our local Dragons to come in and work with our Varsity Coaches and Athletes and had an absolute BLAST from the parent feedback we have been receiving. Our hopes are to continue to build our programs and reignite the Football and Cheerleading programs for our youth athletes in our community.