Funding from DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation to Save Youth SportsWe are thrilled to team up with the DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation on the 2015 Sports Matter campaign. Sports Matter is an initiative to address the decreased funding for youth sports nationwide. According to data compiled by Up2Us Sports, at current cutback rates, 27 percent of U.S. public high schools will not have any school sports programs by 2020.To help reverse this alarming trend, theDICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation is funding a $1.5 million half-off match offer on qualifying team sports projects on DonorsChoose.org. This means that DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation will contribute 50% of the total cost of a team sports project as long as other donors provide the first 50%.Request Materials for Your School's TeamFor teachers who also coach team sports affiliated with your school, this is your chance to get help fund the equipment your team needs. Even if you don't coach a sport, we encourage all teachers to check in with the coaches of your school's sports teams to see what they need and post a project on their behalf. Teachers can read more about how to post a qualifying project here.Sports Matter Success Story: Harlem Lacrosse and LeadershipLast year, DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation launched Sports Matter to support youth sports teams nationwide. One of the teams that received funding was Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership in New York City. Buzz Bissinger, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Friday Night Lights, recently wrote an inspiring story about the program, excerpted here:Jordany is heading into tenth grade at the Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania. It is a college preparatory school with Quaker roots, known for its academic excellence. Not so long ago he was a middle school kid at Frederick Douglass, a New York City public school that goes from sixth grade through high school. He didn’t do his homework and didn’t pay attention, liked hanging with the bad boys because the bad boys are often the most popular. But the summer before sixth grade, his mother insisted that he had to do something and didn’t want him to do it in the projects. She signed him up for a day camp program based at Frederick Douglass. He continued with it through middle school when he went off to Westtown. He finished his freshman year with a 95 in algebra, a 91 in French and an 89 in physics.The reason for that has to do with that thing he carries back and forth from Frederick Douglass Academy regardless of the stares:A lacrosse stick.You can read the entire story here.
