The city of Toronto had just as much to gain from the free agency signing of Jerome Williams over the summer as did the Raptors. When he arrived in a mid-season trade with the Pistons in Feb. 2001, he brought strong rebounding skills, an intense work ethic and an enthusiasm for the game that quickly made the "Junk Yard Dog" a fan favorite in the Air Canada Centre. He also brought his community service program across the border with him.


Jerome Williams puts the same energy into his community work as he does playing with the Raptors.
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The 6-9 forward signed a long-term contract with the Raptors in July and now his nonprofit organization, Positive Shades of Black, is preparing to make a long-term commitment to Toronto with the launch of the JYD Project, slated for September 2002. Run by his brother, Johnnie Williams III, Positive Shades of Black has touched the lives within many school systems in the Detroit area through an array of programs that service all ages.

"One, it's a way of giving back, but two, it's also to show that I appreciate all the help that I received along the way," Jerome says. "My parents were my two main influences but they had a lot of help outside the home, in reference to teachers, counselors, friends and family members who always kept us doing the right thing, made sure that we were always working our hardest and pushed us to do that. That's another reason why I do it – because some kids need that one person, one or two people that really influence your life."

"Jerome initially wasn't playing as a Piston so we had a lot of time to figure things out," Johnnie says. "We had to do something with this guy who wasn't playing and was miserable. But when he was out in front of kids and creating his own fanfare, it brought him to life. He got addicted to it and I got addicted to it."

The brothers work in a partnership that has Jerome as the star power and motivating force for the students and Johnnie as the creative mastermind behind the organization's endeavors. Jerome is also the only player in the NBA who has his own mascot – naturally, the Junk Yard Dog – and it's an integral part of the JYD Project, a conglomerate of programs that service five target groups, as follows:

  • Elementary School: This is mostly an introduction to the Junk Yard Dog philosophy, to get students on the right track at an early age.

    "We send the mascot out with a fine arts team, a storyteller, a motivator, things of that sort," Johnnie explains. "They go in and basically just have a great time with the kids and send home messages about doing your homework, being a good person, getting "A's" in citizenship, things like that.

  • Middle School: By this age, homework has become more crucial, so Positive Shades of Black developed the All-Star ABC Club to ensure that students have time devoted to their studies with encouragement that extends beyond basketball.

    "In Detroit we've grabbed people from the Tigers, the Red Wings, the Pistons and the Lions. Of course, in Toronto, we'll have the Blue Jays, the Maple Leafs, the Raptors and maybe some of the Canadian Football teams," Johnnie says. "These guys basically just lend their names and thus creating an All-Star Club that kids are attracted to. It's an after-school club where they're required to do an hour and a half of homework on site, Monday through Friday. They get rewarded with All-Star dollars each day for attendance at school, behavior in school and homework completion. And those dollars can be redeemed each month for monthly incentives that get bigger and bigger. We've had great success with that in Detroit."

  • High School: The JYD Project certainly doesn't back away from academics at this juncture, but it recognizes that certain life skills become just as important.

    "We have our financial literacy program and we're looking now at how we can provide workshops for all the Toronto high schools for the seniors outgoing each year through Jerome's contract," Johnnie says. "It's basically setting goals, resume writing and job seeking, how to open a bank account and write checks and then we deal with investing. Finally, we close out with the whole gamut of credit, all the fine print. So we teach kids about variable interest rates and everything.


    Jerome's uses his "Junk Yard Dog" alter ego to encourage students to do their homework.

  • Wayward Students: The goal behind the JYD Project is to keep children on the right path, but it doesn't ignore those who have strayed or fallen upon difficult times. This is geared toward incarcerated juveniles and students with troubled behavior or who are in alternative schools.

    "We created a program called 'Beyond the Walls' that's basically a 13-week mentor program run by social workers that we work with that takes the kids through the life skills workshop," Johnnie says. "We deal with a lot of character-building and problem-solving, trying to find what the root of the problem is and then what we do is we graduate the kids on to a personal mentor in the field of their interest or their talent.

    "And we try to take corporate Americans more so for this program, who have access and can actually open a door for these kids. An extreme case and going down the wrong road works with someone who is an extreme success case, outside of an athlete or an entertainer. Put these two together so they can see the contrast in lifestyles. The kids have a direct example: I can have the same things I would have wanted being a basketball player or drugs might have been the answer, but I see now having these things the right way. So that program is about bringing about the corporate community as mentors."

  • Educators: These are some of the most influential and least recognized factors in a child's growth and learning process and the JYD Project wants to reach out beyond the students with its "Tickets for Teachers" program.

    "This basically rewards the teachers with unused seats to entertainment venues that might range from operas to plays to concerts to basketball, football," Johnnie says. "We looked at it as being a way to leverage unused seats and promote the franchises in these cities that have teams and also ways to creating a playing field to recognize teachers for what they do.

    "The athletes go to schools to talk to kids and give them rewards and things like that, but they actually pull some of them away from teachers who are there every day and don't get any kind of recognition for it. I think we have an expectation that the teachers are just going to be there. So this is a way Jerome and his teammates shift some of their celebrity onto teachers and try to 'celebritize' them so that kids look up to teachers as they would look up to a ballplayer."

    In Detroit, Positive Shades of Black partnered with an organization within 32 Detroit schools and last year, before Jerome got traded to the Raptors, they were able to reward each teacher in each of those 32 schools with 1-3 tickets for a theater or sporting event. The Williams brothers will not be pulling out of their work in Detroit – the JYD Project just marks their international expansion.

    "I figure if you reach one kid then you've reached your goal," Jerome says. "If you go out with the same message and say to yourself, 'If I can touch one life then that's what I'm on this earth to do.' Because the thing is, you don't know who that's going to be. So you just have to continue to do what you do and hopefully find out within this lifetime whether or not you reached somebody."

    "What I really wanted to do was play basketball and be a leader and a role model. But I got injured so I understand the ramifications of what some people call falling short of a goal or dream of playing basketball, but I had so many other talents," Johnnie says. "What I want kids to understand is that there's the reality of getting hurt and not making it, but there's also the reality of living out your dream anyway. What we try to do is get to the root of that, why you really want to do it and help them find ways to accomplish that ultimate goal, which really isn't about playing basketball. That's just a vehicle to get them where they want to be."

    The Williams brothers have a set a goal of serving 500,000 people over five years and the JYD Project will take all the teammates it can get. They're looking for volunteers or donations of money or in-kind gifts.