While Michigan football is gearing up for its season, kids all over the country are readying for the return to school.
With school set to start next week for many in southeast Michigan, the Wolverines took their lone off day of the week from fall camp to meet 20 members of the Park Ridge Community Center for an afternoon of back-to-school shopping at a Meijer in Ann Arbor.
Park Ridge Community Center, which partnered with Washtenaw Community College back in 2012 to enhance its ability to impact the community, offers recreational and educational programs to Ypsilanti youth, and has a focus on after-school and summer activities.
Each U-M football player was paired with a student and given a $250 Meijer gift card to get anything they found necessary
be it clothes or school supplies.
For Julia Martin, mother of 12-year-old Mitchell Cook. Jr and 11-year-old Chase Cook, this was a dream come true. Mitchell was paired with wide receiver Jaime Ffrench while Chase got paired with U-M's star edge John Henry Daley.
She said her kids have been U-M fans since they began watching football, but she's never been able to afford to take them to a game or a camp. Martin is a single mother, currently living on disability due to "Hidradenitis" disease.
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Martin goes to the hospital frequently, sometimes for more than a week in a row, and her children will have to stay with some of their "church famliy." With nobody to fall back on and a fixed income, the opportunity for her kids to get clothes and necessities from school brought a wide smile to her face.
"It's a blessing," she said. "We're working off of one income ... I have no financial help, I don't have the support, I don't have any of that. So when God sends things like this my way, I just feel so blessed. ... [the kids] don't understand the bills come first, they have to be paid or we won't have a house.
"So this is just a blessing for us."
Michigan sent a number of its star players to participate in the event, almost all of whom are expected to start or be a part of the rotation including Daley, Ffrench, Andrew Marsh, Salesi Moa, Travis Johnson, Savion Hiter, Carter Meadows, Enow Etta, Dom Nichols, Jyaire Hill, Andrew Sprauge, Chris Bracy Troy Bowles, Nate Owusu-Boateng, JJ Buchanan, Jonah Lea'ea, Cam Brandt, Zeke Berry, Zack Marshall and Nathaniel Staehling − each seemingly more engaged than the next.
Marsh joked about how the mother and student he got paired with "knew just what they wanted" and he was basically just hanging out and conversing with them, following with a cart and loading it up. Zeke Berry, meanwhile, stood with a student for a few minutes in front of the white t-shirts, debating the merits of a crew cut or a v neck.
Then, after the student decided, Berry added the total price to his calculator to ensure they were staying uner the $250 budget. Most did a great job threading the needle − Etta's student was right over $248 and Buchanan's was almost exactly $239 − while some lost a bit of cabin pressure.
Marshall's student's total went over $420, before they had to clear the register, then start scanning in order of importance and prioritizing certain clothes over others.
Carts were full with various items including water bottles, socks, underwear, shoes, sweatshirts, jeans, journals, glue, lunch boxes, index cards, folders, paper, colored pencils and even goggles with a snorkel attachment so one student could use it to learn how to swim.
Cheryl Harvey, the director of programming at Park Ridge, told the Free Press a parent called her earlier in the week and she could hear them crying on the phone as she described how important this was for her family. Meeting the U-M stars was simply a bonus on top and one that meant a great deal to the players, too.
"I used to see NFL players doing stuff like this, so it's always been my dream to do better for the youth," Hiter told the Free Press. "It's just great to get to bless these kids, bless these parents with an amazing opportunity."
Meijer is now one of three sponsors that will advertise inside Michigan Stadium this fall.
Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia. Make "Hail Yes!" your go-to Wolverines podcast, available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) or watch live on YouTube.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football goes back-to- school-shopping with $250 per youth
