Pastor Keith Babb, with The Way Church of Tampa Bay<\/a>, said he grew up dealing with poverty and struggle and he could relate to children\u2019s needs.<\/p>\nWhat You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Keith Babb, the pastor at\u00a0The Way Church of Tampa Bay, created a playground for neighborhood children\u00a0\u00a0
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It’s located on what used to be a dirt lot next to The Way Church of Tampa Bay
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The project also includes a learning center inside a church building
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Babb said he hopes to upgrade the playground to include and outdoor kitchen for family gatherings<\/p>\n
Babb said he noticed children playing on a dirt lot next to the church on Aster Avenue and thought, “Man, they need something more.”<\/p>\n
He believed that many of their parents couldn\u2019t supervise the children because they were at work. He said there was a high rate of young people in the neighborhood getting caught in the juvenile justice system, so he decided to do something.<\/p>\n
Babb got artificial turf and playground equipment donated to make the lot a safe place for the kids to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really put on my heart to create a space, a safe space for kids in the community,” he said. “So, we are calling it The Sanctuary on Aster Ave.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it made him happy to see children taking advantage of the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the kids just love this space,” he said. “And as you can see it\u2019s not much, but for them it\u2019s everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside a church building next to the playground there is the E3 Community Learning and Family Resource Center, a learning space set up for children. Volunteers like Rebecca Abraham work with the kids on their reading skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you bring it back to your teacher and she grades it,\u201d Abraham said as she tutored a half dozen kids around a table.<\/p>\n
There are also computers that the students can use for their learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is the clich\u00e9 that nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care,\u201d said Babb. \u201cSo, we engage the community first. We want them to know that we are here for them. We want to know their needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Babb said he hopes to expand the playground to have an outdoor cooking and eating area so families can have gatherings like birthday parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my faith. I\u2019m a pastor by profession,” said Babb. \u201cThe Lord is a big part of my life, and it pushes me to do things like this and to serve others. It\u2019s who I am and who God has called me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Tampa pastor wanted something more for the kids in his neighborhood, so he created a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[767,2297,770,2296,28,115,772,277,2298,135,137,136,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-174859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-community","9":"tag-app-everyday-heroes","10":"tag-community-news","11":"tag-everyday-hero","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-on-air-ticker-article","15":"tag-public-safety","16":"tag-rick-elmhorst","17":"tag-tampa","18":"tag-tampa-headlines","19":"tag-tampa-news","20":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}