EDITORIAL: Thumbs up for Youth Service Day coaches

March 22--Advertisement

Coaches count: This is tournament season for a variety of sports, but people with coaching skills can make an impact in a different type of arena -- by helping to prepare young people for the 26th annual Global Youth Service Day on April 12.

In Erie, the annual service day attracts more than 300 young people who volunteer at 25 nonprofit agencies. The Erie event is part of an effort coordinated by Youth Service of America.

Edison Nicholson, director of the Youth Leadership Institute of Erie, said coaches are still being recruited to help mentor young participants and to volunteer their own talents.

There will be a meeting for coaches and captains March 29 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Downtown YMCA, 31 W. 10th St., and a volunteer workshop on April 5 from 9 a.m. to noon at Gannon University'sZurn Science Center, 143 W. Seventh St. For information, contact Nicholson at 806-0103 or edison_nicholson3@hotmail.com.

Hometown pride: We're thrilled that the Edinboro University women's basketball team will play in the NCAA's Division II Elite 8 at Erie Insurance Arena, facing California State Polytechnic Pomona at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

That's just one of many honors for women basketball players from Erie; four Erie natives have been selected as players of the year. The list includes Edinboro's Valerie Majewski, a General McLane grad, for the PSAC West; Notre Dame's Kayla McBride, a Villa Maria Academy grad, for the Atlantic Coast Conference; McLane's Sarah Hansen, of Florida Gulf Coast, for the Atlantic Sun Conference; and Harbor Creek'sJessica Zoltowski of Elmira College, for the Empire 8 Conference.

Kevin Wagner, who coached girls basketball at St. John Catholic School (now closed), is proud that McBride, Hansen and Majewski all played for St. John's at the same time.

Vote once a day: You can help the Regional Science Consortium to keep boaters safe by voting for an education grant from the BoatU.S. Foundation. The grant will educate boaters about how to access and use data from a new weather buoy, to be put in the Pennsylvania waters of Lake Erie this spring.

The buoy will collect meteorological data, including wave height and period, wind speed and direction, water temperature, air temperature and air pressure. The data will help to provide more accurate forecasts for Lake Erie. The consortium and its partners will use the grant to educate boaters about the data and to develop a text-alert system.

To vote, visit www.boatus.org/grants/vote.asp. Hurry. Voting ends at 11:59 p.m. on Friday.

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