Grant leads to free group sports at Avondale Elementary

When Birmingham native Kirsten Robinson participated in after-school athletics programs through the Levite Jewish Community Center growing up, she had no idea it would impact her so much that she would one day come back to put her own programs in place. 

“It’s a vital age to teach them stuff like self-confidence, team building, inclusion. … I think children should always have opportunities to participate in sports,” she said. 

A little less than a year ago, Robinson, now the LJCC athletics director, proposed a grant to the LJCC that would give Avondale Elementary students the opportunity to participate in free-of-charge, organized group sports as part of an after-school program all year. As a child, she said, sports gave her an opportunity to grow and find things out about herself. 

“That opportunity was given to me by the LJCC, and it’s one of those vital tools for young kids to be able to express themselves through sports, whether that be learning things about themselves, learning confidence in themselves,” Robinson said. 

Robinson said playing sports at the LJCC was such an important part of her childhood that she eventually began working for the community center in her teens. When she graduated high school, she was offered a scholarship to play soccer at the University of Kentucky, where she graduated with a degree in social work.

“I came back partly because it felt like home, partly because it felt like this is what I wanted to do. Sports is what I wanted to teach, and if I could give back what they gave me, it felt right,” she said.

The 2018-19 school year is the first year of this partnership between Birmingham City Schools and the LJCC, she said. The group sports began with soccer, which they practiced from the beginning of the school year until November, when the program switched to basketball. During the springtime, the kids will go back outside for flag football.

“We can broaden our community to make a vessel between schools that are right down the road from us. I feel like sometimes Birmingham can be so cut off and doesn’t have those vessels,” she said.

Robinson, along with a few other LJCC staff members and volunteers, works as a coach for the children each Thursday afternoon, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. 

The kids are split into two groups, kindergarten through second grade and third grade through fifth grade. Since August, Robinson said they have started from “square one” and have learned practice schedules and skills related to the sport, in addition to doing some scrimmaging toward the end. 

To learn more about the athletics offered at the LJCC, go to bhamjcc.org.