Northeast Times

Enjoy some Soul food
for thought

Kids Stuff
By William Feldman

Welcome to Kids Stuff. Today’s column includes information about the First Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy fund–raiser and the 2008 Philadelphia Soul season opener.

FIRST THINGS FIRST
The First Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy is located at 4300 Tacony St. in Bridesburg. I was contacted by e-mail from Holly Boggess, who has two children, a first-grader and sixth-grader, enrolled there. She is also involved in their parent group. She thought my column would be an excellent place to mention the school’s annual fund-raiser, a challenge between the Harlem Wizards and their own school basketball team, First Philly Eagles, which will take place on April 5.
This fund-raiser will help raise money for the 47 sixth-graders who will go to Montreal, Canada in May for a three-day trip. The students will be led by their principal, Mrs. Stacey Clarke, along with several teachers.
According to Holly, this basketball challenge was a wonderful family event that was a huge success last year.
"Parents requested to have it again this year. This year’s event was planned one week after last year’s game ended," she explained.
How did the idea come up for the basketball challenge between the Harlem Wizards and the First Philly Eagles?
Holly responded, "Our principal, Mrs. Stacey Clarke, was looking into doing different types of fund-raisers. She went onto their Web site www.harlemwizards.com and got the information we needed and we went with it."
Last year they raised more than $1,000, which they used for the students to go to Canada.
The First Philly Eagles team will be comprised of 15 to 20 adults, which includes parents and staff. The referee will be a parent, Michael Edwards. Michael presently is the girl’s team coach at University City High School. The pep squad and cheerleaders will perform during halftime. The Harlem Wizards also interact with pre-K and kindergarten students in a mini-ball game at halftime where they give out T-shirts as prizes.
To increase student interest in this fund-raiser and hopefully spirit them for their PSSA tests a week later, the school will have a pep rally on Tuesday. Last year, as well as this year, Claude Henderson, known as ToJo, from the Harlem Wizards will make a promotional visit to the school for their pep rally. He will surely get your attention. I was told he is about 7 feet tall and great with the children.
The ticket prices will be $10 for adults, $8 for ages 4 to 13 and free for ages 3 and younger. Tickets can be purchased at the school beginning Tuesday, between 2 and 4 p.m. Tickets can also be purchased at the game itself. Refreshments and Harlem Wizards merchandise will be sold at the game.
Believe it or not, the Harlem Wizards charge them $1,000 plus 50 percent of total advance and gate ticket sales. There is also a $260 charge for the promotional visit. They need public support to cover their costs and hopefully make a profit for this trip.
For more information, call 215-743-3100.
In case anyone is not familiar with charter schools, they are public schools that function under a contract (charter) from the chartering school district. The charter allows schools to engage in innovative educational programs that meet high performance standards.
Enrollment at The First Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy is open to all Pennsylvania students, with priority given to Philadelphia residents. If there are more applications for admission than student openings available in a grade, students are selected by lottery.

SOUL NEWS
Everybody needs a little Soul now and then. The 2008 season signifies the team’s fifth anniversary. The first Philadelphia home game of the season was March 1 against the Orlando Predators.
If you are unable to attend any future games you can catch all the latest information on Sports Radio 950, which will air the games live on www.sr950.com. This season, team owner Jon Bon Jovi is hoping to win his first Arena Bowl title.
Here is the team’s active roster:
#1 Larry Brackins; #2 Matt D’Orazio; #4 Anthony Dunn; #5 Dee Webb; #6 Eddie Moten; #7 Tony Graziani; #10, Brian Mance; #11 Mike Brown; #12 Kenny Henderson; #13 Jamall Broussard; #16 Connor Hughes; #18 Darius Watts; #23 Rod Davis; #30 Clifton Smith; #40 Wes Ours; #48 John Peaua; #55 Martin Bibla; #65 Mike Mabry; #77 Phil Bogle; #79 Steve Edwards; #81 Chris Jackson; #90 George Gause; #95 Tom Johnson; #97 Gabe Nyenhuis; and #98 Bryan Save.
The active roster changes based on injuries and new players that are added during the course of the season.
The league has also made a couple of new rule changes since last year that will make the game even more exciting. The major change affects one of the linebackers.
Previously, one of the linebackers had to stay in an imaginary box beyond the line of scrimmage. Now, this "jack" linebacker is able to move from sideline to sideline, but is still not able to rush the quarterback.
The other linebacker, the "mac" linebacker, is allowed to rush the quarterback. In other words, only one of the linebackers is allowed to rush the quarterback because otherwise, it would become impossible for the offensive line to protect the quarterback.
This is because there are not as many offensive linemen in the AFL as compared to the NFL.
One other notable rule change from last year is that if a player fumbles through the back walls/end lines of the end zone, it will become a turnover as opposed to a live ball.
Getting back to the game itself, the season opener for the Soul against the Orlando Predators was a very impressive display of efficiency for the Soul.
They were able to score on every possession of the game while they managed to stop the Predators on several of their possessions.
Tony Graziani threw for nine touchdowns and had zero interceptions. Major impressive contributions came from their new wide receiver, Chris Jackson; their other starting wide receiver, Larry Brackins; their kicker, Connor Hughes, who was perfect on extra points and set a single game record for the Soul; and Eddie Moten, who was excellent on defensive coverage.