Northville Youth Flag Football Team Competes in Charity Tournament

The children of the Michigan Youth Flag Football league have raised over $15,000 to donate to the American Heart Association this Sunday. Of that amount, the Northville Colts have raised more than $1,000.

The teams will compete in the Flag Football For Heart Tournament, held today at the Catalpa Oaks Park in Southfield. Games will take place until 7 p.m.

Admission is free and open to the public. Concessions, obstacle courses, and other games will also be part of the festivities.

Michigan Youth Flag Football is made up of nearly 4,200 kids from Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Livingston Counties. The Northville Colts raised the most money among the Kindergarten and First Grade Division.

Bryan Ledin, the league's executive director, said the league began in 2006 with 350 kids and five years later it has increased twelve fold.

Michigan Youth Flag Football, or MYFF, is the largest NFL-affiliated flag football league in the Midwest, he said. It is a year-round football and chearleading league, open to boys and girls from ages 4 to 14.

Ledin said that as the league grew year after year, he began to focus more on fundraising and charity opportunities. After a colleague met Cindie DeWolf of the American Heart Association, a fruitful relationship was forged.

Ledin and the coaches prepped the children and their families for a fundraising period that would last from May 1st to June 1st.

"We weren't sure how much money would be raised," said Ledin.

Over the course of a month, $15,000 was donated. All of it is going to the American Heart Association.

"Michigan Youth Flag Football has been phenomenal to the American Heart Association, raising $15,000," said DeWolf, Youth Market Director for the AHA.

"That's money we wouldn't otherwise have."

DeWolf said that the majority of the money will be going to heart disease education and scientific research.

The partnership seems to be a perfect union. MYFF is aimed at children four to fourteen years old, and that's roughly the exact age range DeWolf is trying to reach.

"Childhood obesity is an epidemic," said DeWolf. "Our life spans are getting shorter. We need to address that fact."

By reaching children before they reach high school, DeWolf and the AHA hopes to instill the importance of healthy eating and an active lifestyle.

DeWolf said that once children reach high school, "it's hard to get their attention at that point." 

The tournament is a means to raise heart disease awareness while also rewarding the teams that were able to raise the most money.

Ledin said the tournament was designed so that the the top fundraisers were rewarded and not necessarily the best football players. At $1,100 raised since May 1st, the Northville Colts come in at number one for their age group.

Still, the tournament is on a Sunday and there is football to be played. Ledin says you don't have to remind the children of that though.

He added, "All the kids are jacked up and excited."