Inspiring Educational Achievement in Today’s Youth, Through Professional Athlete Outreach and close mentorship through our City ACES Mentors Program (CAMP).

Why Do We Choose Athletic Outreach?

Athletes can be powerful ambassadors for social change, and are often defacto heroes of children living in inner cities, due to perceptions of “success” and identity. Therefore, if an athlete so chooses, he or she can positively affect and influence communities in general, and youth in particular, towards higher educational attainment. This is a high calling, but it is a dynamic that may dictate a student’s life trajectory, for better or for worse.

Athletes are asked to volunteer nothing but their time, as we spend a day visiting middle schools in their local communities. The event will be held as a school assembly activity, where the athlete will share his or her story with the children, and share the important role that education played in helping them achieve their goals. At the conclusion of the assembly, City ACES will leverage its established relationships between local mentoring organizations and school administration officials, acting as an enabler to shorten the distance between students and available adult mentors.

We are not blind to the fact that many schools in the inner city are substandard in terms of available resources, but resources are only part of the equation. Often, the desire to learn and engage in the educational process is absent from the student angle. Motivation and building of esteem can be instantly and inexpensively transmitted to the students, given the right catalyst. Professional athletes can serve as this initial catalyst for change.

“Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?”
- Martin Luther King Jr.