MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Summer vacation for Shelby County Schools students starts a week from Friday.
Memphis Police shared some Orange Mound crime numbers with WREG Tuesday, showing the importance of finding children a safe place to be over the summer months.
MPD said that in the 38111 and 38114 zip codes last year, between May 1 and September 1, there were 112 incidents where someone was shot or shot at.
In one of those cases, a juvenile was the shooter.
In 35 of those cases, juveniles were the victims.
WREG spoke with a mother in Orange Mound, who wants to keep her nine-year-old son busy this summer.
“He’s at that age where he want to run around and walk to the store by himself,” said Shun Dockins.
Dockins applied to get her son into the Orange Mound Community Center’s summer day camp.
A person at the community center’s front desk told WREG there was room for about 120 kids in the camp, and it’s not full yet.
There are other efforts to keep kids in the Orange Mound area busy this summer too.
Tennis Memphis is pushing for donations to hold seven weeks of summer camps.
“Five of these centers are not in what you would call traditional tennis neighborhoods,” said Tennis Memphis Executive Director Stephen Lang.
He said children from the Orange Mound area would likely play at Bellevue.
Organizers said it is more than just a new sport to some.
It is a chance to work with a mentor and give kids something productive to do.
“I think there’s a lot of other kids out there that aren’t necessarily going to be a great basketball player, baseball player, but they could be just unbelievable tennis players. But they got to first get on a court,” Lang said.
Tennis Memphis said they were also doing tennis clinics at the Orange Mound Community Center this summer.
The City of Memphis is also working on its MPLOY jobs program for young people this summer.
It randomly selected participants from each city council district, including the Orange Mound area, to work and get paid.