SCORES and Oakland Unified Team Up to Create Joyful Experiences
Oakland Girls Jamboree Fall 2023
America SCORES Bay Area has joined forces with the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in a dynamic partnership focused on empowering children from low-income families through soccer, poetry, and service learning. The collaborative effort emphasizes inclusivity, joy, and building strong connections within the community.
In providing high-quality, free after-school enrichment programs to 25 under-resourced Oakland schools, America SCORES Bay Area is dedicated to ensuring that every child has access to playing sports and opportunities for growth and development.
Buttressed by greatly expanded funding from the state of California, local educational agencies including OUSD now have more resources to grow afterschool programs and invest in high-quality partnerships, like SCORES. The new influx of grant money translated to a supplemental $5 billion spread across the state, with a healthy portion going to Oakland.
The energy was on vivid display at the SCORES Girls Jamboree, held at Cesar Chavez Field at the International Community School in Oakland on Nov 11. The Saturday Jamboree featured a dynamic array of girls' soccer teams competing on the field and performing poetry, showcasing both their soccer prowess and poetic creativity. The Girls Jamboree is a key element of SCORES' mission to promote Girls in the Game, empowering young girls with skills to excel in sports and life and fostering their self-assurance and resilience.
Looking out over the scene of girls playing soccer and supportive families celebrating from the sidelines was Mike Hutchinson, OUSD School Board President. "These are the kinds of partnerships that I'm really excited about because they bring more resources into the community. An event like this provides the spaces not just for our students but also for our families to interact in an increased and impactful way," he said.
“It is rough in Oakland now. And for a lot of us who grew up here, it’s become so expensive that it’s hard to even stay here. So it’s an exciting time for us as a school district and to finally be able to partner in this sort of way.”
Martha Pena, the Expanded Learning Coordinator for OUSD, oversees the district's afterschool programs across 83 different schools. For her, partnering with SCORES was a clear win. "We wanted an organization that had a strong infrastructure with the experience and expertise to do this work with very minimal guidance from our office. We wanted the leadership, the team building, and the elevating of the academic component beyond pure soccer. And so when we looked at our partners, we looked at partners that had that already embedded into their infrastructure," she explains.
Beyond providing physical and academic enrichment, SCORES focuses on building joy and community, dovetailing with OUSD’s own mission. “A couple of years ago Oakland Unified went through a strategic vision process, and one of the goals was to provide joyful schools, especially coming out of the pandemic,” explained Pena. “What’s exciting about our partnership with America SCORES in the expansion of our elementary school programs is the opportunity for families to feel like they are part of this community, that they are invested in their student's learning and feel welcome at the school sites.”
“Feeling safe, being able to express yourself, finding your voice, and having community and a place to play — it’s what our world needs.”
"Joy is really about being able to express whatever you feel – however you feel – and being accepted,” said Trina Fields, arts program manager with Expanded Learning. And through arts and sports, the teachers and supporters in the community fold and create space for youth to find the joy of who they are, what they're capable of, and also to envision a dream for themselves."
Chen Wick, sports program manager with Extended Learning, calls what she sees on the field a game-changer, particularly the extension of sports programming into the weekend. "What's unique about today is that right behind me are girls playing soccer all day on Saturday as part of the Oakland Unified School District. When you look at data, through the state of play, only 14% of youth in Oakland meet the 60 minutes of daily physical activity recommended by the CDC, below the national average of 23 percent nationally. And only 9% of girls in Oakland meet the standard. We’re changing that here by providing sports programming six days a week.”
For Hutchinson, the benefits of team involvement in sports and poetry go even further.