THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996 TAG: 9608211054
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 47 lines
It was Julian Pete's first time out of downtown Norfolk this summer.
``We ain't had no fun all summer 'til we came here,'' the 15-year-old Huntersville youth said Tuesday afternoon as he waited in line to hop on a go-cart at Ocean Breeze Park.
``It's the event of the summer,'' said Edward Wiggins, also 15 and from Huntersville. He hadn't been out of the city since school let out in June, either.
These boys were among 26 inner-city Norfolk kids treated to a day at the fun park, thanks to Norfolk's Fletcher's Masonic Lodge A.F. & A.M. 26. It's part of the state lodge's effort to help troubled neighborhoods ``take back the community and restore children so they can take their place in society,'' said Bill Tyre, a lodge member who helped chaperone the group.
The state lodge brought its charter bus from Grafton to transport the kids. The city arranged for reduced entry fees to the park.
Hamilton Thornton, grand master of M.W. Hiram Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M., the state lodge, said his 3,200 members are doing similar things throughout the state.
``A lot of people are talking, but you've got to put something in action, do something,'' Thornton said. He rested under a shade tree while the kids splashed in the pool and drove the go-carts.
So Thornton challenged his membership to provide ``more fire and less smoke,'' and they got right down to it.
Under the leadership of Worshipful Master James Smith, Norfolk's lodge adopted the Huntersville Recreation Center as a project two years ago and helped sponsor football and basketball clinics and an athletic and academic awards banquet in conjunction with the city.
``The brothers got excited and started doing lots more'' with at-risk youth in Huntersville and other Norfolk neighborhoods, Tyre said.
This year, the Masons also enlisted the help of other organizations and businesses to put on parties and cook-outs.
``We felt real good about it. . . . That's where we get our reward - seeing people happy and smiling,'' Tyre said. ``Now that may be old-fashioned, but it makes a difference.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot
Julian Pete, 15, rides a go-cart at Ocean Breeze Park in Virginia
Beach Tuesday. The day at the amusement park was his first trip out
of downtown Norfolk this summer. by CNB