During the 2012-2013 school year, the Rams and Diversity Awareness Partnership launched a new community outreach program called Rams Blitz: Youth Working together to Break Through Boundaries. The program arms student leaders with the skills and knowledge they need to become leaders of diversity and inclusion issues in their personal lives, schools and communities.
This year, student leaders from Normandy and Affton high schools participated in the second-year program aimed at promoting cultural diversity and trusting relationships.
Rams Blitz encourages program participants to look beyond their day-to-day comfort zone by building a common bond through a year-long program of repeated interaction and focused training including character development, leadership and facilitation skills and diversity workshops. Over the course of five months and five collaborative events, more than 100 students from Affton and Normandy High School participated in team-building exercises and inclusion training. Students also discussed issues such as gender, racial and sexual-orientation discrimination and reviewed tactics that will empower them to be agents of positive change.
Purposefully, the settings varied as much as the curriculum. Each school hosted an event and two events were hosted at the Rams Training Academy. The students bonded over a social outing at a St. Louis Rams home game.
The Rams Blitz program is the first of its kind in the St. Louis region and no one can speak to the impact of the program quite like Normandy High School head basketball coach Terrance Hamilton.
“There were a lot of myths that existed, and a lot of those myths were broken down,” said Hamilton. “I think it was valuable to both parties. There was a bonding that wouldn’t have taken place any other time.”
For Reena Hajat-Carroll, executive director of Diversity Awareness Partnership, it was an honor to co-create the Rams Blitz program.
“In a year following a great deal of negative attention around schools in the St. Louis region, it was remarkable to work with these 100 students from Normandy High School and Affton High School,” said Hajat-Carroll.
“At each session, the students demonstrated their willingness to learn, to engage with people who were different from themselves, to break down stereotypes, and to be leaders in creating more inclusive communities. The program positively impacts not only the students themselves, but also their schools, families and the St. Louis region as a whole.”
Molly Higgins, Rams’ vice president of corporate communications and civic affairs, credits the program’s success to a variety of factors.
“As a professional sports team, we are fortunate that we can usually get the attention of students,” said Higgins. “The critical thing to us is that once we have their attention, we need to make sure we have a meaningful message to share. We also want to make sure we teach them ways to help spread that message within their circles of influence.”
“As a community outreach department, we always talk about the importance of partnering well with subject matter experts, and Rams Blitz is a great example of a successful partnership,” said Higgins.
“The expertise that DAP and CHARACTERplus brought to the program provided the students with a truly substantive and meaningful experience. The conversations and exercises that they led opened a lot of eyes and more importantly minds. Because of Rams Blitz, our hope is that these kids will become proponents of diversity and inclusion for the rest of their lives.”
