LEWISTON — In basketball, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.

Some people in one of Lewiston’s largest low-income housing communities are trying to give the children that live there a chance to take some shots at the hoop while giving them a shot at learning about respect and citizenship.

Since early August, a growing number of kids at River Valley Village have been signing up to participate in Monday-Thursday practices and Friday games on the complex’s four-basket asphalt court.

In a little over six weeks, 30 kids have gone from spending their weekday afternoons watching TV, playing video games or being driven to mischief by boredom to spending 60 to 90 minutes on the court learning basketball and lessons that go beyond the court.

Residents and police say the basketball program, started by River Valley Village service coordinator Tina McBride and resident Jon Fortin in early August, has changed its participants and the complex in a short time.

Structure needed

As Fortin walks with a bag of basketballs in one hand and two cases of bottled water under the other arm, a gaggle of young children wait for him inside the chain-linked walls of the basketball court.

It is a late Tuesday afternoon at River Valley Village, and Fortin is a little late for practice. Patrick Pinkham, who helps Fortin run the practices a couple of days a week, has maintained some form of organized chaos in the interim, no small feat for one man amongst a group of 18 kids between the ages of six and 14.

Fortin rolls out the basketballs and splits the group in two. As another half-dozen children trickle in, he lines his group up and engages each child, most of them boys, in a little one-on-one, with the diminutive Fortin always on defense.

In between turns, Fortin occasionally has to admonish someone for cutting in line or pushing. The court is constantly being circled by kids running a lap for breaking a rule.

A passing drill follows in which two players make three passes between each other while moving towards the basket, taking a shot after the third pass. Then everyone gets into a circle for another passing drill, this one practicing chest passes. The kids are clearly getting restless, and Fortin promises them they will soon be able to play a game of “knockout,” a free-throw shooting drill the kids find far more exciting. But first, they need to show they’ve learned how to chest pass.

McBride, who works for the Caleb Foundation, a non-profit, interfaith organization which owns the low-income housing complex, came up with the idea for the basketball program in response to frequent juvenile disturbances at River Valley Village.

“We needed a program where there’s a lot of structure, there are rules, there are consequences, and we have to be very solid with it,” McBride said.

“We learned that most of the problems that they had been having occurred on the basketball court,” said Lewiston police officer Craig Johnson, a community resource officer for River Valley Village. “A lot of older kids that don’t live here were coming over and using the basketball courts, monopolizing them, disrespecting property, sitting on people’s cars and taking chairs off of their porches and whatnot.”

Many of the housing complexes in the city only have basketball courts to provide a place for outdoor activity for kids, Johnson said, “so when these older kids were kicking younger kids off the court, what do you think they were doing? They were going around causing mischief.”

Johnson is quick to point out the kids currently participating in the program weren’t the primary trouble-makers, but added “We’ve seen a sharp decline in stuff like that. Compared to last summer, our calls for service in this area are nil, and I’d like to attribute a lot of that to the fact that Jon is keeping them gainfully occupied and teaching them things like respect.”

“These kids weren’t getting any shots out on the court because of what was happening with the older kids,” Johnson said. “Jon is helping them take those shots now.”

“These kids, they thrive in it,” McBride said. “They want it, whether they’ll admit it or not. From what I’ve seen, in how they’re treating each other and neighbors and property, they’ve bought into it.”

“The parents are definitely glad for something constructive for their kids to do,” said Lewiston police officer William Rousseau, who, like Johnson, referees the Friday games. “Jon has given the kids a great outlet to burn some of that after-school energy, and we really haven’t seen all that many problems.”

Parental approval

McBride hatched the plan for the program at a meeting of the residents council. A day later, she found a perfect partner to help her develop it in Fortin.

Growing up in Poland, Fortin had always wanted to start a youth basketball league. A devoted basketball fan (he owns over 500 basketball jerseys), he knew he could help when another resident told him about McBride’s idea.

“Ever since I was 10 or 15 years old, I’ve just dreamed about it,” said Fortin, a 24-year-old shelf stocker at Wal-Mart with an eight-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. “Then Tina talks to me about it, I’m like ‘Yeah, I’ll take it.’ I mean, something that you’ve dreamed about for 10 years and then it’s basically handed off to you, you more than happily take it and run with it.”

The Caleb Foundation provided initial funding for the program. McBride quickly involved Lewiston police because “I wanted to see them interact with residents in a different way,” she said.

Parents were hesitant at first to embrace the program, Johnson said.

“A lot of them thought if the police are advocating for this, there might be some sort of underlying theme as to why we want them on the basketball courts,” Johnson said. “When the kids were coming home happy to the parents, the nervousness was gone.”

“We’ve seen parents finally starting to show up for the games on Fridays,” Johnson added. “The first couple of weeks, they’d just send their kids out there. Now, we’ll have not only the parents coming to the games, but adults all around the complex have been coming to our Community Action Group meetings just absolutely ecstatic about what Jon’s been doing and the difference it’s made around here.”

River Valley resident Rebecca Caron’s nine-year-old daughter, Briana Labrie, was the first girl to join the program.

“My daughter could not even make a basket before she started,” Caron said. “Now she can put the ball in the hoop and has excelled at that and defense. She loves playing basketball. Jon is an excellent coach and has gone above and beyond, and I’m happy he and Tina have put together this program.”

“The first time was pretty embarrassing because I was the only girl here,” Briana said. “It gave me a nice chance to learn about basketball and how you play certain parts of basketball.”

Learning respect

The basketball lessons come with other instructions.

“I just love playing basketball and learning new stuff,” said 12-year-old Hussein. “We learn a lot about respect. If we disrespect somebody here, we run a lap or two laps.”

“We do fundraising, collect trash and bottles and sell stuff,” said 14-year-old Abukar Hassan.

Asked what he’d be doing if he wasn’t playing basketball, Abukar said “Probably watching TV.”

Fortin and the kids raised just under $250  for more basketballs, water jugs and first aid kits. The Police Athletic League donated jerseys for the games. When those arrived, game-day participation doubled from 15 to 30 players and the program got a name — the Caleb Foundation Survivors.

“Once they got their jerseys, they started showing up a lot more often, once they figured out that this is for real,” Fortin said.

Playing for the Survivors may have its perks, but it has its responsibilities.

Fortin recently had all of the kids gather at the basketball court and gave each a 30-gallon trash bag “and they all, without a hassle, just started picking up trash around River Valley,” he said.

McBride and Fortin are hoping for other housing complexes to start-up their own programs to compete against them. They would also like to play against other youth leagues and perhaps even start a travel team.

Much more fundraising will need to be done before then, Fortin said. A recent event involving several basketball contests, a raffle and bake sale drew close to 100 people, and another raffle is being held on Oct. 1.

The program will run until Oct. 1, then resume in March or April, McBride said. There are already nine more kids who have said they to sign up for next year, and Fortin hopes to have more older kids over the age of 14 participate.

“Next summer,” Johnson said, “I’d be willing to bet we’ll fill up that basketball court and more.”

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