Late night event at Gus Young Park promoted mental well-being through basketball [Video]

BATON ROUGE — The Mayor-President’s Summer of Hope initiative to help solve youth crime continued over the weekend with Friday’s “Late Night Hype” celebration at Gus Young Park.

The celebration featured an after-hours basketball tournament, free food and a variety of other activities meant to promote mental well-being.

Organizers for the event, including BREC, Health Place Church and Empower225, said they want to inspire positive behavior for young people in the neighborhood around Gus Young.

“So what it essentially is is an opportunity in the late night hours to be able to cultivate this community, just as we all say we want to,” Jacquise Terry, a campus pastor at the Healing Place Church Dream Center, said.

Two other Summer of Hope events — “Peace Behind the Hood” in Tams Drive Park, and “Heal the Block” at Kerr Warren Park — also happened over the weekend on Saturday.