MIDDLETOWN — A Middletown man is replacing basketball nets throughout the city’s parks in hopes of giving the youth an opportunity to play sports and stay off the streets.

Cedric Burns-Davis said while he traveled around to the parks playing basketball, he noticed some of them needed nets or worn ones replaced. One of his friends, Harli Debusk also told him about courts that needed nets.

So the 38-year-old took it upon himself to start replacing them. As word of his work spread on social media, another friend, Louis Smith purchased more nets. Burns-Davis estimates he has replaced 15 nets, and eventually, he’d like to install new backboards and rims.

He will attend an upcoming Parks Board meeting to discuss his plans and learn about the city’s future ideas for the basketball courts.

Since Burns-Davis doesn’t have a ladder, he stands on top of his Jeep Grand Cherokee to reach the 10-foot rims. It only takes a few minutes to replace each net, he said.

But that little effort has paid big dividends, he said.

“Man you should see the smiles on the kids’ faces,” he said when about the reaction he has received. “That’s a feeling you can’t buy with a dollar bill. That’s the best gift you can get. It’s everything for me.”

Without opportunities, Burns-Davis said youth will turn into “something you can’t control.”

He speaks from experience. After he graduated from Garfield Alternative School in 2003, he attended Kentucky State University for 2 1/2 years, but during his return visits home, his life took an “interesting turn,” he said.

He turned to the streets and the easy money those on the corner provide. The cash came at an expensive price. Eventually, Burns-Davis was convicted of selling heroin and he served 15 months in the state’s Correctional Reception Center penitentiary in Orient.

“I had to learn the hard way,” said Burns-Davis, a former resident assistant at Sojourner Recovery Center in Hamilton, which provides substance abuse treatment for women, men, adolescents and their families

So when he talks to young men about the obstacles in their lives, they tend to listen, he said.

He uses that message when he tells them to clean up their mess in the park.

“These kids know me,” he said. “I tell them, ‘I’m one of you. I’m not judging you. Pick your trash up. I’m not playing.’”

Everyone needs positive role models, he said. For him, that was his mother, Jeanne Burns. He hopes to fill that role for other kids.

“If we don’t give them something to do, we will have more inmates than civilians,” he said. “I tell them to mimic someone positive, someone who has been through the fire, burned from it and healed from it.”

DeAnna Shores is project coordinator for Middletown Connect, a version of 17Strong in Hamilton. She started a local program with hopes of connecting local residents with resources to help them with their volunteer efforts.

Burns-Davis serves as a Community Ambassador for the group.

“He’s a prime example of someone making a difference,” she said. “I’m excited for him. He can reach a different group of people.”

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