Boehm looking to make a difference for kids
“Ivy’s very humble in that the fact he’s not looking to gain anything from this. He just wants to give back to his community and leave something that will last forever.”
In this time of sports when some professional athletes have chosen symbolic protests in the hope that positive change will occur, one Ridgeland High School student-athlete is actually going out and doing something to bring about positive change now.
Senior Ivy Boehm, who plays football and baseball for the Panthers, has come up with a way to promote youth sports and help out the next generation in the process.
Boehm is currently working on his senior school project in which he has started a program to collect new and/or used sports gear in order to equip younger players who might not be able to afford the equipment otherwise.
He said he got the idea last year after the Ridgeland baseball team held a block party for kids in the community.
“I saw all these kids out there and some of them just didn’t have the money to go out and be able to buy gloves and bats or anything,” he said. “I really wanted to give them a chance to be able to play sports.”
“It touched us all and pulled on our heartstrings when we met with some of these kids,” Ridgeland head baseball coach Scott Harden recalled. “I’ve told this story a lot, but I had a truckload of hats with me that day. The (high school) baseball team felt like they needed to give some of them away and I said sure. When I looked again, the entire box (of hats) was gone. We probably gave away $1,500 worth of hats, but that was fine.
“It’s all about having servant’s heart leadership and developing relationships with the kids. I never said anything else to the team about it. I think they all learned a lesson that day that it’s about giving and not receiving.”
One player that was inspired was Boehm, who later asked Harden to be his advisor for the project.
“Ivy came to me at the end of last year and wanted to see what I thought of his idea and I’m just honored that he asked me to help him with it,” Harden said. “He just told me he felt really sorry for some of those kids. He thought some of them were pretty good (at baseball), but they told him they couldn’t play because they didn’t have any
money.”
Boehm’s idea involved building donation boxes to collect the equipment. Once the gear is acquired, it will be furbished and distributed to kids, with the stipulation that the equipment must be turned back in at the end of their respective seasons so it can be reused by another player the following season.
“I talked to Carthell Rogers at the Rossville Athletic Center,” Harden explained. “He was wanting to start a sort of benevolent fund where kids could participate, but (Rogers) said the problem was that there wasn’t any equipment, for football especially. Helmets are like $200 each now, and then there’s shoulder pads and everything else. It’s not like it used to be when I was coming through and the equipment was in-house and you used it and turned it back in at the end of this season. That’s not the case with a lot of youth sports now.”
Boehm said he plans to put boxes at every elementary and middle school that feeds Ridgeland High. In addition, a big collection box will be set up at Hibbett’s Sporting Goods in Fort Oglethorpe to collect donations.
“A friend of my mom’s is going to help out with the distribution of the equip- ment at Ridgeland,” Boehm said. “I plan to let (Ridgeland High School) keep all the boxes so this project can keep going once I (graduate).”
Harden said the community has already began to respond and they have had several equipment donations already.
“Just this morning I had a man bring in some football gear,” Harden said. “He said he bought it when his kids were younger, but that (his kids) were 35 (years old) now and didn’t need it anymore. He brought us helmets and shoulder pads, even some cleats. I think once everybody hears about this, it will take off fast.
“There are just so many kids that need stuff that don’t have anything, you know? A program like this just helps all of us out even more.”
Other than perhaps what he hopes will be high marks for his project, Boehm said the only thing he plans to get out of all of this is the joy of helping others less fortunate.
“It just makes me feel great to know I’m doing something to help kids out and allow them to play sports,” he said.
“Ivy’s very humble in that the fact he’s not looking to gain anything from this,” Harden added. “He just wants to give back to his community and leave something that will last forever.”