GREENVILLE, Mich. — The 4th annual football camp hosted by Greenville native Justin Zimmer took place on Saturday with over 140 kids participating.
“I think just giving back to the local community that supported me through my whole career is really important and I wouldn’t want to do it anywhere else, to be honest,” said Zimmer.
Justin got his start playing for the Yellowjackets in high school, then went on to play at Ferris State and had a seven year career in the NFL. He brought his skills back to his hometown on Saturday for his annual youth football camp.
“I think really if you just watch the end of that (First) camp, you can see why we want to do it. The kids have a lot of fun, when we get the footballs out for the giveaways and stuff. They just go crazy and all the different drills that the coaches put them through, they have a great time and it’s a great way to support a great cause.
All the money raised throughout the day goes back into an organization called ‘For Goodness Sake’, founded by other Greenville natives, it provides presents to kids who otherwise wouldn’t get anything to open on Christmas morning.
“We started off collecting pop cans to raise money just so we could help kids who were less fortunate around Christmas time and slowly over the years we’ve grown it so where we’ve helped out over 425 kids and have given out over $8,000 in scholarships over the last few years,” said Zimmer.
There were two sessions at the camp. The first included kids ages kindergarten through 6th grade, and the afternoon group had 7th-12th graders. New Greenville head coach Scott McDougall was on site to lead a few of the groups, he said he was trilled with the turnout and to see how much this town loves football.
“Yeah it was fantastic, great turnout. We really appreciate the community support. Justin has done this camp for a few years and does a great job with it. And the turnout, I think it highlights just how important football is to this community,” said MCDougall.
Justin said the turnout this year was on par with years past and they will continue this camp for years to come.
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