Dade County Youth Sports needs your used lacrosse sticks! Jim Piggot’s Miami MAHI and Dade County Youth Sports after school program is dedicated to introducing the game to kids who otherwise would never play but they need stick donations. Last Spring, Dade County Youth Sports approached head coach Jim Piggot, of Gulliver Prep and Miami MAHI, about introducing lacrosse in their after school programs. They decided to start small with two locations, Pinecrest Elementry and Palmetto Middle School. This fall they have added two more sites with a third already requested for the spring.  The fast growth has been fantastic but has also left the program woefully short on equipment. Piggot’s take on the situation, “It’s not easy to start up lacrosse at the beginner level. The thought of planning and doing is different from actually executing. We first thought that new players would show up by word of mouth and siblings who played. That works but it doesn’t allow for maximum exposure. In my opinion, to truly get it moving, the sport needs to be exposed to as many kids as possible in it’s simplest form. I found that just club teams and camps are not enough to really get traction plus we don’t have enough playing. In these clinics we are handing young boys and girls a stick and showing them the basics. My hopes are that more kids will get the lacrosse bug and we can spread it from a grass roots approach.” The main strategy for Dade County Sports and MAHI lacrosse is to continue to grow its after school programs and get more kids playing sports. Lacrosse is a new and exciting sport which also comes with cost. The goal is to minimize that as much as possible. MAHI provides everything for the new athletes with the hopes of expanding to full equipment clinics someday. Some sticks were provided by donation last spring but now that the clinics are growing, so is the need for more. “We are providing volunteer hours for high school lax players to assist the head coach and also asking for donations of used sticks, equipment or goals.” Any donations can be sent to Jim Piggot- 6575 N Kendall Dr Pinecrest FL. 33156 “I would love for Miami to be an example of how a lacrosse community can come together and build something great. Jim Delang (Columbus/Thunder), Alan Bellando (Belen/Stonecrabs), Will Whyte (RAW lacrosse) are all doing a great job with their respected programs and I would love to see Dade County bursting at the seams with players.” Piggot stated. Any inquiries please contact miamimahilax@gmail.com www.miamimahilax.com