RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — For the 11th straight year, a former Virginia Union Basketball player is giving kids in the Richmond community a chance to learn about the game of basketball, and even more important, the game of life. The Raby Neblett’s Inner City Basketball Camp is in Richmond and is free for those who wished to attend.
Ray Neblett is the founder of the inner-city basketball game that aims to have a safe place for teens and younger children to spend their times off the streets.
“It’s more than just basketball,” said camper Germaine Gregory, “it’s farther than that.”
The free basketball camp has been helping the youth in the community for 11 years.
“It helps us get out of the hoods,” another camper, Timani Harris, said.
The camp also provides hot meals for the 400 kids attending, people for the campers to talk to if they need it and even gives out haircuts.
“Transforming the inner city by transforming the inner man. We bring in so many different people, not everybody done made a bad decision but people we can plug them into to prevent them from making bad decisions,” Ray Neblett told 8News. “This is not just a basketball camp. Tapping into something more than basketball.”
The organizers are working to find ways to help the community.
“Kids need to have like a little activity to do and just get out the city or do anything or get out the neighborhoods so they can have some fun. Like people need fun sometimes,” Harris said.
Neblett told 8News he started the camp so the kids in the community can avoid some of life’s pitfalls that he said experienced after college.
