READING, Pa. – Kids in Reading aren’t just watching their hometown hero; they’re learning from him.<\/p>\n
“We’re playing basketball, working on skills, getting better at the little stuff that we’re not that good at, and just having fun,” said Ayden Luna, an eleven-year-old boy from Reading.<\/p>\n
Today marks the first day of Lonnie Walker’s annual free basketball summer camp at Reading High School.<\/p>\n
At this camp, kids get to practice their skills with professional basketball player Lonnie Walker.<\/p>\n
“He was one of my favorite NBA players. Like, I went to all of his camps, even his dad’s,” said Luna.<\/p>\n
But to Lonnie Walker, the camp is about more than just basketball.<\/p>\n
“We’re just trying to continue to inspire the youth and, you know, just allow them to know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d says Walker.<\/p>\n
Walker explains that it’s all about giving back to the community that raised him.<\/p>\n
“Just doing something for the city, for the community, for the kids. You know, it’s always a dream of mine to just give back and do the best that I can,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
The professional player says he hopes to inspire kids from the same city that helped make him who he is.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have people, your elders and coaches and teachers to come back and train you and talk to you, I mean, it goes a long way,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
For kids here today, it was about more than practicing a layup or learning a new drill. It was about seeing someone from Reading who made it to the highest form of basketball come back to show that they could, too.<\/p>\n
“It feels nice to, like, see people, like, actually want to help others that… like with something that’s really important to them,” said Zhyliyah Burdine, an eleven-year-old girl from Reading.<\/p>\n
But most of all, it’s a way for kids to have a good time playing the sport they love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Kids in Reading aren’t just watching their hometown hero; they’re learning from him. “We’re playing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[99476,734,2363,14459,105995,4794,28,736,128,130,129,105996,95621],"class_list":["post-248063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-basketball-camp","tag-children","tag-community-engagement","tag-giving-back","tag-lonnie-walker","tag-nba","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-sports-inspiration","tag-youth-empowerment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}