Up2Us Sports marks 15 years of empowering youth through sports and unveils a rebrand to expand its impact.
AmeriCorps announced that Up2Us Sports would once again receive critical funding for our national service coach program. Since 2009, AmeriCorps funding has allowed us to train and support over 3,900 coaches to significantly impact the lives of nearly 100,000 young people.
Welcome to a momentous occasion as we celebrate 14 incredible years of Up2Us Sports! Since our inception, we have been committed to empowering young people through the power of sports, national service and mentorship.
We hope you will read our latest Annual Report and we thank you for your support in helping us provide underserved youth with a coach who cares about them. This report covers our 2021-2022 program and fiscal year.
The Morgan Stanley Alliance for Children's Mental Health Innovation Awards—an initiative that aims to identify and fund mental healthcare solutions for children and young adults across the United States—honors a 2022 winner, Up2Us Sports.
1-on-1 With Up2Us Sports is a virtual series hosted by Up2Us Sports where we sit down and speak with athletes, coaches, partners and others about interesting topics related to our work in the Sports-Based Youth Development field. Episode 1 was with Up2Us Sports Ambassador and Las Vegas Aces Assistant Coach Sugar Rodgers.
This year for Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we celebrated some of the many influential AAPI figures throughout sports history. As we conclude AAPI Heritage Month 2021, we celebrate one of our very own coaches, Josh Terao.
March is National Nutrition Month! This year, the theme is “Personalize Your Plate.” What our plate looks like is going to depend on many factors such as access, socioeconomic status, time, personal goals, activity levels, genetics, preferences, and cultural backgrounds. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes and all are worthy of love, acceptance, and nourishment.
John Bilbai graduated from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in 2019, and returned to his home city in Los Angeles to kick off his career in the nonprofit sector. Given that John’s background and experience is in professional strategic relations, it was no surprise that he ended up in the marketing field in Los Angeles.
One of our incredible VISTA features is Katelan Newman, who is doing her service year at South Bronx United. She’s a proud South Bronx native, so her service quite literally ‘hits home.’ SBU was founded in just 2009, and since then, has been focusing on serving at-risk and immigrant youth to “build character, teamwork, and leadership skills so that they can achieve success in high school, college, their careers and communities, and beyond” through soccer.”
On February 4th, Up2Us VISTA members joined a Zoom meeting to discuss the book “A Girl with More Than One Heart” by Laura Geringer Bass. “A Girl with More Than One Heart” follows Briana after the death of her father. Through her grief, Briana imagines a new heart growing inside of her which speaks with her dad’s voice. In the book, her “dad voice” compels her to take actions like “find her,” “move,” and “let go.” While reading, I thought not only about the process of grieving but also about my experiences of home, love, and friendship.
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![[WATCH] Morgan Stanley Innovation Awards Features Up2Us Sports](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58bddd12e58c6278e8a670e2/551e2744-c233-46e6-850d-bac0223d8f13/MHA+Innovation+Feb+2023+1.jpg)
![[WATCH] 1-on-1 With Up2Us Sports, Episode 1: Sugar Rodgers](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58bddd12e58c6278e8a670e2/1628007233912-O2N73EE9IY69QPCAMHKO/Sugar%2Band%2BAhada%2B1-on-1%2B%25281%2529.jpg)
![[WATCH] Young Voices Series, Episode 6: Exploring Race, Class and Privilege in Sports](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58bddd12e58c6278e8a670e2/1599754172816-85E3BYVLTZLIZB28EKUU/Logo%2BSquare.jpg)
