Chucktown Squash

Our mission: Chucktown Squash is a 501(c)3 nonprofit foundation. Its mission is to provide academic guidance, athletic training, community service opportunities, and mentors, via an afternoon program that serves as a springboard, preparing low-resource, middle-school kids for wide-reaching success in the classroom, on the squash court, and in life. Founded in 2009, Chucktown Squash serves 30 students from two Title-1 schools in downtown Charleston.  The College of Charleston School of Education, Health and Human Performance has partnered with Chucktown Squash to provide these life-changing experiences for low-income students, 5th-12th grade. The partnership includes provisions for access to squash courts and classrooms, faculty research, and several internship and undergraduate opportunities.

 Statement of need: Charleston, South Carolina – a city deeply rooted in history and tradition – also has a well-established history of poverty. Of the 22 percent of children in South Carolina that live in poverty –more than 17,000 of them are in Charleston County, according to KIDS Count and the SC State Budget and Control Board. This poverty perpetuates a cycle of poor education and lack of self-regard and as a result, many of our city's young people grow up in environments filled with unimaginable challenges. In Charleston, there is a need for services that promote the benefits of education, knowledge and self-advocacy to our underserved young people.

How our program works: Chucktown Squash employs a similar program model as twenty other successful urban squash programs in cities like Philadelphia, New York and Chicago. In these cities – where programs have been around for 10+ years – young people participate for up to seven years through middle and high school, and many go on to play squash for elite boarding schools, preparatory schools and colleges. One hundred percent of urban squash participants graduate high school and 93 percent go on to college. Chucktown Squash will achieve these same outcomes in Charleston for the city's underserved youth.