Kids get to see Real Men and a beautiful park up close

“Greatest hits” played on a sound system at Fairmount Park on Saturday, and Sherdeill Breathett was spontaneously moving to the music as he surveyed everything. Sweat seeped through his shirt as he smiled behind sunglasses.

“It is a great park,” Breathett said. Coincidentally, the chorus to Bill Withers’ 1977 pop song began to roll over the park: “Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day …”

Back in 1977 when that song came out, Breathett was a young man on his way to playing football for the University of Oklahoma after growing up in Chicago, he says, around a man who was alcoholic and abusive.

Now, Breathett is president of the board of Real Men, Real Heroes, a nonprofit group in Wichita that helps to mentor boys in grades 3 to 12 who need male role models. A mentor helped him years ago.

On Saturday, Real Men, Real Heroes hosted a free Community Day to show what it has to offer and to showcase the park at 16th and Fairmount, just south of Wichita State University. Fairmount is one of the city’s oldest and most beautiful parks, with tree-studded slopes tilting at every angle.

The park also has seen its share of violence over the years, and it’s important for people to have fun there, to thrive there, on the edge of the university’s main campus, said Van Williams, one of the founders of Real Men, Real Heroes.

As Williams spoke, kids got to eat grilled hamburgers at picnic tables under shade trees, jump in bouncy houses, taste cotton candy and see police and firefighters up close and not in a crisis.

Real Men, Real Heroes also tutors boys and takes them to cultural arts events and Kansas City Chiefs games – “just trying to expose them to a lot of positive events and influences,” said Williams, who also is a spokesman for the city of Wichita.

The park, he said, looking at the trees and vast lawn around him, is a treasure for the growing university and the neighborhood around it. “It’s a strategically important park.”

For more information about Real Men, Real Heroes, call 316-973-0544 or go online to www.RealMenRealHeroes.org.

This story was originally published June 25, 2016 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Kids get to see Real Men and a beautiful park up close."