New England SCORES

CONTACT:

Bayside Office Center, 150 Mt. Vernon Street, Suite 2
Dorchester, MA 02125
(617) 265-0066
www.newenglandscores.org

Kathy Fitzgerald, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Here is an opportunity of a lifetime: a charity with huge growth potential and demand for its services, at the heart of revitalizing urban education. SCORES is a soccer program that addresses two serious childhood issues: obesity and low literacy. In 1998-99, the model was piloted in Washington, D.C. with sensational success (thousands of students involved, Presidential recognition). A staffer moved here, and behold: New England SCORES.

Today, New England SCORES reaches 360 students in 12 elementary schools in inner-city Boston, including during school vacation weeks. In August 2003, it opened Summer SCORES, a full-day, five-week, summer camp program of soccer and theatre arts held in collaboration with the Boston Children’s Theatre. In Spring 2006, it launched SCORES FC, a middle-school program in two schools, with plans to grow to eight schools. Success has produced more demand -- their waiting list continues to grow, and SCORES would like to reach more middle schools. Why soccer? Because it's: the fastest growing sport in the U.S., low cost, size- and gender-neutral, intensely teamwork, and especially appropriate for ethnically-diverse inner cities. Over to you.

(1999: CULTURE: Education: Formal: School-Related)