March DADness tournament now in its 10th year
When fathers are involved, children do better.
That’s the sentiment echoed by Melvin Hubbard El, known by many as state Rep. Ed Gainey’s Chief of Staff, but also known as ardent supporter of the Male-Fatherhood Initiative.
Also known as Male-Fatherhood Involvement, it’s a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Early Childhood Program. The Early Childhood Program, which spans across many schools in the district, educates children prior to Kindergarten (3, 4, and 5 years old). The Male-Fatherhood Involvement encourages fathers of those children to be more engaged in their children’s lives.
“They come in, they pick their children up and drop them off each day. The problem is, how do you get the father to become an advocate for their child,” Hubbard El told the New Pittsburgh Courier.
One of the ways is the annual March DADness basketball tournament, the tenth of its kind held March 17 at Pittsburgh Obama. The nearly 30 African American fathers split into four teams, and held a three-game tournament to determine a winner.
Kim Dellefemine, program officer for the PPS Early Childhood Program, said the real winners are the kids. “We notice as dads are more and more engaged, meeting the teachers, talking to the teachers, the kids are doing better,” she told the Courier. “The children are progressing, and they’re prepared to enter Kindergarten. They’re ahead of the game.”
Dellefemine said there are other ways fathers can engage with their children, including a “big focus on family literacy programs,” she said.
Each month, the Early Childhood Program holds events to encourage interaction between fathers, their children, and the school. In October, a Fall Family Kick-off was held, which essentially was a meet-and-greet event for fathers to meet their children’s teachers. A Walk Your Child to School Week was held in November, a Movie/Science Night was held in December, where fathers watched a movie with their children at the school, then participated in a hands-on science activity. In April, there will be another Movie/Science Night, followed in May with a Take Your Father to School Day, where fathers will take part in the daily activities that their children do during a normal school day.
“There’s really been no guidance in my generation, whether it was dads or older brothers, there wasn’t a male figure to actually lead. We learned in groups, and learned a lot from TV and what we saw,” said Tyrese Gilbert, a 33-year-old father who participated in the March DADness event. By his side was his son, 3-year-old Benaiah, who attends Obama. “So, to instill the values in him that he needs to grow up to be a man, there’s no place I’d rather be.”
It’s not just fathers who can be part of the Male-Fatherhood Involvement program. A person could be an uncle, a big brother, a cousin—the children almost always benefit from that positive “father figure” in their lives.
“They do better educationally, socially, and the thing about it is, mothers have been doing it (by themselves) a long time,” Hubbard El said. “Fathers who are involved, the children just do a better job in school, and that’s why we have this tournament, to make sure they get involved.”
Gilbert doesn’t place any blame on fathers who are not in their children’s lives. “When you talk about my generation, and even going back to World War I, World War II, the drug epidemics that came later and took fathers away—a lot of people (my) age are either gangbanging or died (as a result) of gangbanging, or they’re in jail, or not here with us,” Gilbert said. “So, at the end of the day, I don’t blame anybody for not stepping up, I just look at it as something that I have to do if I want to break the cycle of what’s going on.”
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