Category Archive
“I wouldn’t do anything different.” That’s what Coach Simba says about these past two years as a LISC AmeriCorps member. Serving Chicago’s underserved youth has been an incredible experience for Simba, he does so by teaching them about living healthy and active lifestyles through the sport of soccer. Soccer and working with youth are two…
Urban Initiatives is so lucky to have Coach Andy “Championship Attitude” Neilsen on our team this year as an Up2Us Coach Across America AmeriCorps Member. He oversees the Urban Initiatives Coaches Corps Program and supports the Work to Play Program at Daley and Libby schools. Coach Andy was determined to get involved in AmeriCorps because he…
Every day this week we will celebrate one of our awesome Program Associates! Today we spotlight Anthony "Crunch Time" Hill. Coach Anthony is a 2nd year AmeriCorps member, and ourProgram Associate at 3 partner schools: Pasteur, Morton, and Walsh. He is a sports fanatic and has always dreamed of being interviewed by sportscaster Craig Sag…er,…
Every day this week we will celebrate one of our awesome Program Associates! Our office here is small, with 11 full time staff total…and 6 of them are National Service members! We all feel incredibly lucky to have found these fellows. They are 100% dedicated to our soccer players, and bring so much life to…
Home to Urban Initiatives’ soccer practices full of 2nd to 4th graders in the morning, the Arthur A. Libby Elementary gym hosted a much bigger and louder contest last Thursday. Thanks to a grant from Good Sports that Urban Initiatives secured, Libby received brand new basketballs, enabling it to host eight different elementary schools’ basketball teams as…
Thanks to Coach Simba, the On-Site Program Director at Jenner Academy, for this blog post. You see her walking down Elm Street at 7:20 AM with all three of her kids. Holding her youngest child Davarius by the hand she carefully crosses the street and enters the cafeteria with a smile and a warm greeting,…
While Daley’s Urban Initiatives team reviewed its 5-4-3-2-1-Go! lesson after practice in the gym, the No Child Left Behind committee was down the hall having a health lesson for parents, with a healthy breakfast to start the day off right! As a Healthy Places school, Urban Initiatives has been working to provide workshops for parents…
A critical component of our Work To Play Program is the health and character handouts that we give to our soccer players on a weekly basis. These fun-focused handouts build on the health and character discussions from that week. The soccer players are asked to complete the weekly handout and turn them back into their…
The lunch room at Daley Academy is usually a sea of students’ hunter green uniforms, but a different shade of green is popping up these days – salad green! When Daley received their HealthierUS Schools Challenge award, the Wellness Committee (which includes Urban Initiatives staff from the Healthy Places project) worked with the lunch room…
Written by Jim Dower, Founder and Executive Director of Urban Initiatives On Friday, January 20th, our friend Troy Cameron was tragically gunned down while working at Walgreens. Troy was one of my first students at Byrd school when I began teaching nine years ago, and he made a long-lasting impact on me. In the non-profit…