HARRISBURG, Pa. — Editor's note: This is Part II in a series by Lyndsay Barna as she followed the ELCO High School football team on a visit to The Bridge in Harrisburg.
After ELCO's football team took a tour of the old Bishop McDevitt High School, it was time to hop on the bus.
"I just wanted them to see, for lack of a better term, the other side of America," former NFL player and founder of The Bridge, Garry Gilliam, said on the bus tour.
No two people or players live the same. Gilliam first took the team to Edison Village, one of the places he lived.
"[It] used to be a hospital converted into housing units and when my mom and I lived here, it was section eight housing," Gilliam said.
(The building at 19th and Chestnut opened as Edison Junior High School in 1919. It was later converted to low-income housing.)
Gilliam tried to show each student something that they may not often see in their lives.
"I think it's important to expose people to something they're not often exposed to," Gilliam said. "Coming from a rural community to an urban environment and learning about my story, where I came from. I think it inspired them to be accepting of other people but also do what they can to assist others that are less fortunate than themselves."
Gilliam took them to one more stop: the old Harrisburg High School that has sat vacant for the last decade, a very similar story to The Bridge at the old Bishop McDevitt High School.
Gilliam showed these student-athletes that they can be the change in their own community.
"I think it's important especially for athletes that they are more than athletes," Gilliam said. "That they shouldn't just shut up and dribble. We do have a responsibility to use our social capital and our platforms to do tremendous things, and that's on a local level, a state level, national level and global level."
"Before you get to be 10-0, you have to be 1-0, so one step and one day at a time."