Deputy Superintendent Joseph Harris is shown with children who participate in the Volley Against Violence program at Sportsmen’s Tennis Club in Dorchester.

Frank Williams, 53, was born and raised in the South End and has been a Boston Police officer for 27 years. Some six years ago when he was on patrol, he noticed four kids hanging out in the same place in South Boston every day for a whole week. He stopped several times and asked them, “What are you doing?” Their answers were always a resounding “nothing.”

Williams didn’t like that answer. “One day,” he recalled, “I grabbed the cruiser, took the kids to the tennis court, played ball, got us pizza, and took them back home. I said to them, ‘Let’s do this next Friday,’ and ten kids came that day.”

As things have turned out, that day was the birthday of Volley against Violence, a group of programs designed and offered by Sportsmen’s Tennis and Enrichment Center in Dorchester in an effort to decrease youth violence among Boston area youth by providing them with a positive experiences, skill building to promote positive decision making, and connections to adult role models, including Boston Police officers.

The program is free for youths ages 5-15 (a special section called The Little Ones is available for kids younger than 5).

Police Commissioner Williams Evans was Frank Williams’s supervisor six years ago and he helped Williams work out the logistics of starting up the program at the Sportsmen’s Center, which has been a huge success by all accounts.

Volley against Violence welcomes more than 5,500 families from in and around the Boston area to the center on Fridays from 6-8 p.m. for 40 weeks every year.

“The most important part of the program is conversation and review,” said Williams in an interview. “We all sit on the floor and deal with real-life situations, and key in on self-esteem and self-confidence. We teach the kids their value. All races, all diversity, they need to believe they can make a difference and succeed.”

This program is not about “rehabilitation, but about prevention,” Williams says. These kids are simply learning how to play tennis and how to follow their dreams, and it is creating an impact, so much so that one young man came in with his astronaut costume on, just to let Williams know that he was serious about becoming an astronaut one day.

Some see the visits of special guests each week as the best part of the program. The 2016 season, which started last Friday, has an impressive lineup: BPD Gang Unit, Boston Fire Department, State Police, Motorcycle Unit, the MBTA police, among many others.

“The men and woman in these departments want to show up and give themselves on a regular basis to have kids know and trust who they are,” said Williams.

For more information and further updates on the program, please visit bostonpolicetennisprogram.wordpress.com.