The storyIn 2013, sitting at a diner after a few hours of basketball on a Saturday morning, Ray Fredrick and Andrey Yoffe, for similar and different reasons and hopes, decided to start a not-for-profit organization focusing on real-life issues and tangible guidance for junior high school students in underserved communities in our neighborhoods.
Ray, Risto, and Andrey have different perspectives on life, different tastes in food and music, etc., but we clearly have a common passion when it comes to team sports and helping young people. We've combined the two because we all grew up playing team sports and understand the incredible and positive impact sports has on young people, especially on young people from our underserved communities. We created a not-for-profit organization that reaches out to schools in underserved communities in pursuit of standing up free team sports after-school programs for students. We're focused on three things and make sure our curriculum reflects that:
Our curriculum is sports-agnostic and highly customized for the students we are working with. In addition to sports-related (e.g., basketball and soccer so far!) drills, exercises and scrimmages, we have literacy exercises, one-on-one character building, nutritional snacks, etc. We're small, we're nimble — we don't have any salaries or stipends; every cent we make we use it for the program and take significant money out of our own pockets to supplement donations from our incredible donor base. |