Pokemon for Progress Uses Popular App to Do Good in Shreveport-Bossier

Catching Pokemon and paying it forward!

I'm sure you've seen signs around Shreveport-Bossier and some people braving the heat to clean up the parks or gather donations for the homeless. The group is Pokemon for Progress and their goal is to do good in our community all in the name of Pokemon GO. It's the brain child of locals Jessy Broughton and Daniel Gordy.

This past weekend they were in downtown Shreveport collecting donations for the homeless community.

In one day they were able to collect over 1,000 items for the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission. Items included food, clothing, toiletries and baby products. They teamed up with Chris Graham and Beth Ogilvie with the Bossier Farmers' Market and Yokem Toyota to make it happen. Many came out to donate and catch some Pokemon at the same time.

Yesterday (July 20), I found Pokemon for Progress at the Duck Pond picking up trash.

The Duck Pond is a Poke Stop in Shreveport and at any given time, you'll find people out playing the game. Authorities have even allowed gamers to play past the closing time of the park, as long as they keep it clean.

According to volunteer Brittany Hudson, it's the perfect combination of doing something you love and helping the community.

I think it's an amazing opportunity for people to get together with something we love. People of all kinds got together to help our community. We live here so we should be able to help out the less fortunate people here. It's a big thing for us and for them. We're not just some lazy nerds playing a game on our phones, we're making a difference. This will not be the last event. We plan to go bigger with this.

If you'd like to get involved, check out Pokemon for Progress on Facebook.