GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) -- The first season of Grand Rapid's Police Department's On Base program is underway. The program aims to keep kids on the baseball diamond and off the street.
Four youth baseball teams started play Thursday morning at Belknap and Martin Luther King parks. The teams, coached by volunteers from the Grand Rapids Police Department, have been practicing twice a week since early June.
"We just started this year trying to get the kids a little more--or actually the police--a little more active in the youths in the neighborhoods and give them an opportunity to hang out with us and get to know us in a non-enforcement type capacity, where were not in uniform. We're not scary, we're not looking like a bad guy--a mean guy or someone they have to be afraid of," explained officer Aaron Rossin.
The four teams will play an eight game schedule over the next six weeks.