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A positive force in teenagers’ lives
By Sean Barron
WARREN
Tiffany Walker and Charity Stubbs have taken major steps toward making positive life choices, but sometimes they enjoy simply accomplishing such a goal one step at a time.
“It’s helped me become a better person,” Tiffany, a Warren G. Harding High School junior, said of being part of the Positive Force Drill Team.
Tiffany was one of several drill-team members who took part in a four-hour clinic the team hosted Saturday at Lincoln K-8 School, 2253 Atlantic St. NE, to introduce junior-high students to a variety of moves drill teams often use.
About 60 students in grades six through eight participated in the workshop, sponsored by the Warren Police Athletic League and Warren Weed & Seed, to learn basic drill-team moves, procedures, calls and stomps.
Goals of the drill team, founded in 1984 in Warren, include giving youngsters tools to make good choices and build in them high self-esteem, noted Rosselle Burch, founder, director and step coordinator. An emphasis is on achieving academically, respecting selves, parents and community and avoiding drugs and alcohol, Burch explained.
“If they can follow these rules, we hope they can follow the rules of life,” he said.
That formula seems to be working for Charity, who joined in her freshman year and appreciates how the team has helped her learn the value of being disciplined.
“It’s helped us show discipline, respect and dedication to a group and helped us progress as teenagers,” Charity said, adding that she hopes to join a sorority after high school.
Saturday’s clinic was a natural fit for Antwanaijah Burgess, an eighth-grader at Lincoln and one of the participants.
“I like to dance, but I used to be a cheerleader,” Antwanaijah explained, adding that she enjoyed learning a hip-hop move called a parade rest.
The event also was positive for the youngster because it has increased her desire to be on the team in high school, Antwanaijah continued, adding that she hopes to become a nurse.
The youngster came with her mother, Nicole Stuart.
The high-school students, along with Burch and his assistant, Daryl Williams, demonstrated various turns, stomps and other moves with military-style precision before having the youngsters break into four groups, each led by a drill-team member. The groups allowed the middle-school students more one-on-one time with their leaders to practice certain basic routines, footwork and stomps.
The police athletic league and the weed-and-seed program want to introduce more young people to nontraditional sports such as competitive cheerleading, drill-team and junior-high tennis and wrestling, and make more scholarships available for those endeavors, explained Tina Milner, Warren Weed & Seed’s program coordinator.
“There are other sports kids can get scholarships for,” besides baseball, basketball and football, Milner said, adding that she hopes more youngsters will take part in such forms of competition.