COLUMBUS, Ohio — A nonprofit in Hilltop is working to fund a new recreation center to honor a 15-year-old boy who was fatally shot last summer.
MY Project USA is planning to build the "Issa Jeylani Memorial Recreation Center" to remember Issa Jeylani, who was a soccer player for their club team, the Hilltop Tigers.
Issa was fatally shot on July 22, 2022. He is believed to have been playing soccer with his friends and teammates around the time he was struck.
The goal of building an indoor facility is to help keep children in the Hilltop community safe and sound year-round, according to Zerqa Abid, the Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit.
“We don’t want to lose any more. We’ve lost so many,” she said.
Those who knew and loved Issa say he was his happiest on the soccer field.
Abid said her team is extremely grateful to Issa’s parents and family who supported the idea to name a center after him.
“The reason we are naming this recreation center after Issa Jeylani is that we want to make sure that people remember him as a very good kid, a soccer star, as somebody who did not die because they’re on the wrong track, but somebody who was wrongly taken away from us while he was doing everything right.”
A rendering of the project is pictured below:
The cost of the property on Sullivant Avenue was $250,000, and to fund the project, the nonprofit is looking for help from state and local leaders and a fundraiser.
“We have been advocating for additional indoor recreational spaces in this neighborhood for two years now,” Abid said. “We have gone to the state, we have gone to the mayor’s office, we have gone to the city asking them to invest more in this community because we have seen the rise in gun violence, gang violence, drug deals and we know that a major reason of that is that we don’t have enough indoor spaces that we can keep our children away from the streets.”
After construction, the building will have two indoor soccer fields, a lot for cars, a separate basketball facility, a cafeteria and an office.
With the potential build, the nonprofit plans to rent out the space when it's not in use to generate more money to put into the program.
For those wanting to learn more about the indoor facility, visit MY Project USA’s website here.