Bob Kelly joins campers and Delaware troopers in YMCA kickball game

Bob Kelly turned a summer kickball game at the Bear-Glasgow Family YMCA into a public meeting point for campers and Delaware State Troopers, with the 4-minute, 26-second Good Day Philadelphia clip airing July 1, 2026. The scene at 351 George Williams Way in Newark, Delaware, put kids and uniformed officers in the same low-pressure game instead of opposite sides of a formal presentation.

The matchup mattered because the setting fit the sport. Camp Cassey, the YMCA of Delaware program that serves children who have completed kindergarten through eighth grade, is built around youth programming and summer camp, and it is accredited by the American Camp Association. Kickball gave those campers a familiar entry point with little setup and no specialized equipment, making it easier for them to interact with troopers as players first and authority figures second.

That is where the social value of the game showed up. Delaware State Police has a Community Engagement Unit designed to foster positive relations with communities and to provide training and presentations, and a kickball field offered exactly that kind of contact in a form kids can enjoy. Rather than standing apart from the campers, the troopers joined a game that naturally breaks down distance and gives a child a reason to talk, laugh, and compete with an officer in a setting that feels safe.

The visit also fits a longer Delaware pattern. State Police Camp Barnes dates to 1947, when it was created as a youth-focused anti-delinquency initiative, giving the department a long history of using recreation to build trust with children. The Bear-Glasgow stop carried that idea into a simpler, modern format: a camp field in Newark, a summer TV segment, and a game that asked campers and troopers to share the same bases, the same rules, and the same space.

FOX 29 placed the piece under its Good Day programming and the Kelly’s Classroom & Camp Kelly content stream, reinforcing the idea that this was not a scoreline story so much as a relationship story. Still, the sports part was real, and kickball again proved why it works so well in public settings: it is casual enough for camp, competitive enough to keep attention, and open enough to turn a first meeting into a memorable one.