Dancing on a jumbo train is certainly a memorable moment for kids.
Wednesday, for the first time, the Grand Rapids Drive, the G-League affiliate of the Detroit Pistons gave them that chance, as they played at the home of the pistons, in front of school and youth groups.
"We're in the pistons family and we wanted to see if we could do something cool, see if we could get kids involved, something for the community, trying to get people out here that maybe couldn't afford or haven't been out to Little Caesars Arena," Drive President Steve Jbara said.
The idea to give tickets away to schools in the city was an easy one, but credit the schools for rewarding the kids who didn't know this was coming, while providing the lesson that it's important to work hard when no one is watching.
"We decided that we were going to honor all of our students that met their spring goals on their NWVA test so they are all here because they made some awesome gains with their testing," Dean of Flagship Charter Shannon Maguire said.
"The students who were awarded the tickets were awarded last minute they been doing a great job all semester without the incentive and then the incentive came afterwards," Detroit Enterprise Academy teacher Angela Hurst added.
The players took note of the crowd as well.
Detroit native Kay Felder was impressed with hearing that's why these kids got the chance to see them play, and was thrilled to be apart of their lives even in this small way.
"It's the reason why I do this honestly, to see kids from the inner-city believe in themselves and believe in their dreams, I never had that growing up where you get free tickets and things like that, so this community of Detroit is changing, it's changing in a good way," Drive point guard Kay Felder added.
All of the teachers hope that there are more events like this on the horizon, so that they can rewards their students the old fashioned way after positive results in the classrooms are seen.
