Inner-city program builds ties with TPC

The Players Championship Journal
Monday, May 14, 2007
Inner-city program builds ties with TPC
Vic Micolucci

You could say Terry Lane is a professor of course ecology. Well, kinda. That’s a more fancy way of saying he oversees people picking up trash at The Players. You can say he is a teacher, though.

Lane is founder of Metro Kids Konnection, an after-school charity that runs daily in Northwest Jacksonville. The program’s home base is at the Cleveland Arms Apartments, a complex that has received a lot of attention. However, the housing community isn’t recognized for good things; it gets a lot of press coverage for the violent crimes that take place in and around. But Pastor Lane is a bringer of good hope.

He started the foundation 20 years ago and hasn’t looked back since. Today, Lane’s program fosters more than 120 Cleveland Arms resident children each day. The program, which operates in the clubhouse of the low-income complex, helps steer kids on the right path. Lane and his volunteers hope to identify potential hazards and correct them as quickly as possible, through education, work training, and hobbies.

The program has a strong relationship with the TPC.

“We help out and they help out,” said Lane. Metro Kids helps out by supplying a volunteer base at the TPC each year. The crew primarily deals with trash pickup and garbage removal. The Metro workers at The Players include program volunteers, coaches, children, and parents.

“We take our TPC very seriously,” said Lane who assigns people to take care of the first 9 holes at the course. The pastor and founder says his workers do a good job year in and year out at The Players.

In return, the TPC has helped the program out with generous gifts and grants. Last Christmas, the TPC donated 12 new computers to the program’s computer lab. The 15-seat van that carries the program’s children was a gift from The Players a few years back.

Terry Lane’s program revolves around community. He feels the TPC is a great part of that community. That’s why each year he sports his sun visor and takes to the holes with volunteers from his program to help keep the greens of the TPC looking nice.