Cornhole, flag football, and longevity: In Kensington, Timoteo wants to build generations of young leaders
The nonprofit with deep roots in the community held its annual fundraiser at the Lighthouse on Saturday.
On Saturdays and Sundays in the spring, the fields at the Lighthouse Sports Complex are home to flag football, but on a warm, breezy Saturday, Sept. 16, it was cornhole that took center stage.
Bryant Keal, now 32, was present on Saturday as a defending cornhole champion, but he also fondly remembers the other Saturdays when he was a much younger flag football player for Timoteo.
“Timoteo was one of the positive outlets in my life to assist me into manhood,” said Keal, who first joined the organization when he was a freshman in high school. He was “roped in” to play for its flag football league by one of his high school coaches.
On Sept. 16, the Kensington-based nonprofit with deep roots in the community and a long history of developing young leaders through its youth sports leagues was holding its Third Annual Cornhole Classic fundraiser to support its work.
When it comes to that work, Timoteo executive director Rob Whitmire said it is much more than just sports.
“Timoteo started as a sports league, but we realize in order to get young people, you need a hook,” he said. “Our end-all is that we want to see our young people become staples in their own community.”
As an organization, Timoteo has been around since 2004, founded as a ministry of Bethel Temple Community Bible Church. A year later, Timoteo’s flag football league was spawned as a partnership between two churches serving around 30 adolescents from the neighborhood.
In 2022, the nonprofit served almost 900 kids, and it stands to surpass that this year.
In addition to football, the organization also offers basketball and summer camp. It also partners with a few local high schools to provide mentorship, college preparation, and works with some employers to place former players at jobs when opportunities arise.
With the help of recent anti-violence funding from the city, the organization has been able to expand the age range of its flag football league to include younger kids, launch a volleyball league, hold an end-of-season awards banquet and fundraiser, and hire its first woman staff member.
“That was just a huge investment from the city, and looking forward to hopefully more and bigger grants in the future,” said Jennifer Somerville, Timoteo’s new director of development.
The nonprofit has attained a longevity few organizations in its community can count on. That has been built on the generations of young people — mostly young men — it has served. In its first years, Timoteo’s coaches were youth pastors from different churches, but now almost every coach is a former Timoteo player.
“The impact of Timoteo really speaks for the legacy of those who continue to invest back in it,” said Kylie Hatfield, one of the attendees of the cornhole fundraiser. “It’s legacies of young men who have been met in the community through vehicles of sports.”
Take Buddy Martinez and Cornell McDonald. Both first joined Timoteo 16 years ago as teenagers in some of its first flag football seasons. Martinez came after his brother and another friend from their church started playing in the league, while McDonald found Timoteo through the youth pastor at his church.
“Kids crave a place to belong.”
“I’ve been there ever since,” said McDonald, who turns 34 in November and is now a flag football coach.
“I just fell in love with the model of how simple it was, and how it was a way you could use sports to impact the community in a good way and be intentional about it,” added Martinez, who has held a number of roles at Timoteo in his time there.
Both spoke of the power of the organization to provide both a safe haven in the community and a network of positive male role models who build meaningful relationships with players.
“Kids crave a place to belong,” said McDonald. “A lot of times, we would think off the top of our head that kids can go home and have a comfortable environment, but their home environment isn’t always the best.”
According to Whitmire, Timoteo now serves youth from across Philadelphia and a few in New Jersey, but a majority still come from Kensington and its surrounding neighborhoods. The realities of gun violence, poverty, and disinvestment, as well as drug use are evident there and impact many households. Going to the field for practice or a game can be “an escape” from that reality, said McDonald.
“That’s the place they feel they belong the most — among their teammates, among their friends,” he said.
A number of the young people who spoke to The Inquirer echoed that.
“It keeps me out of the streets and gives me something to do,” said Nijay Gonzalez, a 15-year-old from North Philly who has played flag football for the last three years.
For 18-year-old Jahiem Hill from Lawncrest, his time playing flag football may now be over, but he’s recently found a love for coaching while helping at this year’s summer camp.
“It’s like an actual profession to me now,” said Hill, who is now in his freshman year at Kutztown University in Berks County. “That’s something Timoteo has taught me, and built for me that I’m actually doing now.”