So you're wondering what packing lunches and care packages, cleaning up overgrown, vacant lots and arranging items in a food warehouse is supposed to teach young athletes about playing football.

If you ask the Carolina Panthers' Jason Baker, he'll tell you what he told some of the 250 middle school-age football players in his Pro Football Mini Camps at Wayne and Concordia Lutheran high schools this weekend - it teaches you that the best way to win on the field or off is to serve the guy next to you.

“There are a lot of things we can do for other people that can help them get over the hump or help them fill in gaps where they can't do it,” Baker said. “Really, the idea is that there is a whole other thing out there that these kids haven't experienced. There were some kids who did enjoy it and understood … and the more of it that happens, that's a successful mission for us.

“It's just a small dose of reality for all of the kids.”

In its third year, the camp took on a slight change in format. After the NFL pulled funding for youth football programs, Baker and supporters of football in Fort Wayne not only kept the camp alive, but tossed in a few twists, adding a half-day coaches' clinic and mandatory participation in one of 15 two-hour community service projects spread around Fort Wayne before they took the field to learn football techniques.

Baker, who regularly donates time to community service, was floored by the response.

“It was more than what I expected as far as the impact,” Baker said. “When we walked into the Franciscan Center, you saw the emotion of the people that were there getting the kids' help.

“One guy was on the verge of tearing up when he explained why he (helped make and distribute 1,000 lunches for needy families each week). For the kids to be able to witness and experience that, they understand that there are people out there who are complete servants to our community.”

Some of the participants were less than enthusiastic about not jumping right into the football side of things. It was exactly those players who Baker hoped would get the message he repeated many times during question-and-answer sessions: not to focus on the nonsense associated with professional sports, but to understand that being a team player is the way to succeed.

“Football truly is a team game,” he said. “Your role in football is just one of (many) roles, and you doing your job right is generally protecting or helping the guy next to you do his job right. It's an interdependence that kids may not experience. Unfortunately, there is so much focus put on all the nonsense. Hopefully, these kinds of projects will redirect their focus to what's really going on.”

After the projects were finished, campers attended football sessions Saturday and Sunday with coaches from each of the 10 Summit Athletic Conference high school teams.

While campers completed their projects Saturday morning, those coaches put on a clinic aimed at helping youth coaches from the Police Athletic League, Metro League and other youth leagues learn better coaching methods both in teaching technique and developing positive atmospheres for their young players.

“Anytime you can bring the whole community together that is serving the kids is really, really helpful,” Harding coach Sherwood Haydock said. “In this capacity, it's football, and we can all share ideas about what's going on at the high school level with our youth coaches.

“I probably had a total of 30 youth coaches come through, and they asked a lot of very good questions. It's interesting because we really have the same problems, just a different age. We learned from them just as much as they learned from us. I liked it, and it was really exciting for me.”

Baker explained that in a coach's career, he has the ability to reach as many as 30,000 young lives. He believes that by teaching coaches as well as players, they can collectively build football players with character - not just characters who play football.