Urban Initiatives’ mission is to work with schools, teachers, and parents to boost the academic performance, physical fitness, health education, and character development of children from Chicago’s underserved communities by actively engaging them in safe and structured extracurricular activities through soccer programs, field trips, and cultural outings.

Urban Initiatives’ vision is to provide preeminent programming to at-risk youth and give them the tools, resources, and skills necessary to become engaged citizens later in life.

The Urban Initiatives’ Work to Play Program is comprised of three, eight-week seasons during each school year. Each week consists of three program sessions. Each session includes one hour of exercise, a health tutorial presentation and a character trait discussion.

Currently, Urban Initiatives serves 270 children in nine schools. Urban Initiatives works at schools where at least 85% of students’ families live at or below the U.S. poverty level. The schools are either 95%-100% African American or 75%-90% Hispanic. All but one of the schools have less than 70% of students meeting or exceeding state academic standards, with one school at only 35%.

In order to participate in the Work the Play Program, students agree to have weekly evaluation forms completed by their teachers. The forms assess students on the on Work to Play criteria, which involve academic as well as behavioral standards. In the event that a student does not meet assessment goals, they are able to attend practice for exercise but must sit out of all games until their scores improve.