It’s been quite a year, folks. But we’ve made it and we’re going strong. Check out all the things the AGE UP community accomplished this year!
2020 By the Numbers
- 0 number of Southend MS Club teams that went to the 7hills tournament (it was cancelled)
- 4 number of Southend MS Club teams that WOULD have gone
- 5 alumni hired to help run our summer internship
- 9 southend players invited to tryout for Team USA
- 40 paid summer interns
- 70 first time donors at GiveBIG
- 400 families we’ve gotten covid relief money to
- HELLA zoom meetings
What’s New This Year
A few notable moments from our year.
We said goodbye to Penny after four glorious years on staff (she’s too busy captaining UW women’s team) and to one of our board presidents, Eric (he’s teaching science in Alabama!).
We won the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Sports Award. It recognizes and honors those in sport who display an innovative and collaborative approach to making their communities a healthier place to live. See Hana talk about it in a very excellent video.
We were added to the 5 org leadership team of the King County Play Equity Coalition and we are part of the United Way King County Racial Equity Coalition.
One of our founders, Sam Terry, was added to the DiscNW Coaching Hall of Fame!
Programming
What a strange year for programming its been! Stay at home requirements have made it all the more clear how lucky we are to have this community and how valuable all of our relationships are. Stay at home orders required us to adjust in major ways. Many things were cancelled, some things were adjusted. And some new things had to be created.
Pre-covid, we helped support the frisbee seasons at 7 southend public schools (Cleveland boys won the HS state championships, and Aki Kurose won the MS league!). The winter saw our girls program run for the 10th consecutive year, the boys program made it almost all the way through but we had to cut it short due to covid, similarly with our Southend Middle School Club program.
This summer we made our virtual programming debut, and we were able to run a summer internship. We met twice a week for six weeks and dug in on topics like anti-black racism, histories of organizing in Asian American communities, understanding whiteness, and mental health. And pictionary, lots of pictionary.
Covid Response
We’ve been moving money! Since the stay-at-home orders in March 2020, AGE UP has moved over $200,000 in low-barrier cash grants to nearly 400 families through our relationships with Southend public schools. This money has been from Seattle Foundation, United Way King County, and individual and major donors.
“It’s because of organizations like this that keep families like myself (single parent of 4) going! I just couldn’t believe I received $500.00!!! During times like these its only a blessing to have organizations that are willing to help out! MY FAMILY AND I THANK YOU.” ~ grant recipient
We were not originally set up to do this but we have been able to help meet the vast community need because of our relationships in the community, our emphasis on minimal paperwork and process, and our trust in people to know what their needs are. There are a lot of aid resources but many are complex to access and restricted in terms of what they can cover (food, rent, etc). Unrestricted, easy to access financial assistance is hard to come by. We do not yet know how long we will be able to do covid relief, but we expect to move a total of at least $203,000. Learn more about our financials below.
“I want to thank you so much for your support during this time. I am having such a hard time with all this . I’m certain everyone is. I watch the neighbor girl during school two days out of the week too. I actually thank god for the blessings that I do have . Like a roof over my head and the graham hill school district.. It really has been the best school any of my children have gone to. thank you again for your time.” ~ grant recipient
10 Year Anniversary
Winter 2020 marks 10 years of AGE UP! We’ve come a long way, and we really wanted to celebrate in person. Over the past several months we’ve been taking stock of where we’ve been, where we are, and setting out priorities for our future. We’ll be sharing more about what we see for the future soon, but for now we’re excited to share our newly revamped mission, vision, and values!
http://https://youtu.be/SNSmwhAdwEI
Family Feast
We couldn’t celebrate our 10 Year Anniversary in person at Family Feast so we pivoted to doing things online. A crew of super brilliant AGE UP youth designed and ran a series of hangouts with some of our usual Family Feast attendees, getting the opportunity to get to know each other better and do a workshop on race and class. Over 200 people attended these!
Alumni Feature
Drea Boroma
Asa Mercer Middle School A Team Coach, Southend MS Club Coach, Franklin HS Ultimate Team Alum, Aki Kurose MS Alum
“Since I was a product of south end coaching, I always felt the desire to give back and be that person that young people can look up to. I know that the people that coached me helped me become a better person and player, so I just want to do that with the kids I coach now…”
Financials
It’s been a tough year for many families and organizations, and we feel grateful to have received so much support from our donors and community. When covid hit, we prioritized moving money to people and continued to pay our staff and interns throughout the year. We paid all our spring coaches the money we committed for those seasons, and increased youth stipends for our summer internship. We also were able to expand hiring of program alumni to lead the summer internship, which was also made possible through Up2Us Vista positions.
Through the 2020 calendar year, we have moved around $200,000 to nearly 400 families in the southend and expect to continue paying out grants through the rest of the year.
Here are graphs outlining our 2020 Financials as of 11/2020:
