By Carlisle Jenkins The Cody Connection
In spite of the name of the program, students in Midnight Golf will not be playing golf at midnight. Instead they will be getting ready for college and adult life.
Students from all over Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties compete to be in this program, and 10 seniors from the Cody campus were accepted to be among the 250 in the program for this year.
Vice president and program director David Gamlin has been with the Midnight Golf program since its first class in 2001.
”The purpose of Midnight Golf is to help young people be successful and do it in a way that gives them life skills and training in things they may not normally have a chance to learn,” Gamlin said.
Program secretary John Ambrose said Midnight Golf helps fill in some of the gaps for young people.
“The road to adult life is a lot smoother for young people if they know they have mentors and a network of adults and peers they can call upon,” Ambrose said.
Cody DIT college adviser Tanya Borachi encourages students to apply to the program because of the opportunities it brings.
“Mentors are carefully selected and tend to be Detroit hot-shots, so students make important connections that lead to internships and jobs,” Borachi said. “And students in the program can get lots of scholarship money.”
Midnight Golf keeps close ties to its graduates. Many alumni return to give back by becoming mentors or guest speakers.
Sharde Fleming graduated from Cass Tech High School and Midnight Golf in 2010. In 2014, she came back to Detroit after graduating from Howard University. Now she’s a mentor at Midnight golf.
“I gained networking traits and confidence from Midnight Golf, and I learned to never count myself out. I can honestly say Midnight Golf was the program that set me ahead, and I chose to be a mentor to set others ahead of the game like me,” Fleming said.
