ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 This week\u2019s Everyday Hero makes it his mission to encourage students to exercise, stay healthy and graduate.<\/p>\n
Oak Ridge High grad and professional football player Jonathan Jones volunteers his time giving back to the community at the Levy Hughes Boys and Girls Club.<\/p>\n
Preparation is key and that\u2019s something Jones knows all about, often giving back to the community he\u2019s preparing to welcome young people for an afternoon training session at the Boys and Girls Club near Creative Village in Orlando.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we are going to be doing a lot of different single leg stability work,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
The program is designed to keep kids active, teach discipline and keep them on the right track.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids are funny, they are fun, they listen as well they are respectful, it seems like they are in their own little bubble at times and sometimes you have to come in and burst it a little to get their attention,\u201d said Jones<\/p>\n
And he has no problem getting and keeping their attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI may not have them all day and I might see them once a week or I might see them few times a week but just in those short period of times but just to be able to be a mentor, a figure is definitely very rewarding,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
A star player at Oak Ridge High School, Jones went on to play pro football in Toronto, even winning several championships. Now retired, he spends most of his time training the next generation by way of volunteer efforts and his organization the playbook manual.<\/p>\n
Boys and Girls Club Director Tasha Robinson-Banks is grateful to have Jonathan inspiring young club members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThem smiling as he is encouraging them just the gentleness in his voice, the opportunity to connect with someone who has loved sports, has played sports professionally and in school for are kids who are endeavoring to do so themselves it has given them someone else to admire,\u201d Robinson-Banks said.<\/p>\n
Just like Jonny Jackson, who attends Jones High School. When he\u2019s at the club, he spends time in the Afterschool Zone getting some professional football advice from Jonathan Jones.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like learning from masters, it\u2019s like learning from a teacher or whatever, learning from someone who has years of experience, it just helps a lot \u2026 there is no other way to learn football than from a football player,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
A player eager to spend time reaching back pulling others forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 This week\u2019s Everyday Hero makes it his mission to encourage students to exercise, stay healthy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2297,3076,28293,54687,1548,115,1335,139,141,140,835],"class_list":["post-268907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-everyday-heroes","tag-app-good-news","tag-curtis-mccloud","tag-everyday-heroes","tag-good-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268907","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=268907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}