A LiFEsports camper and counselor shooting hoops at a community court | Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Wade-Mdivanian
An Ohio State initiative serving at-risk youth since 2006 was nominated for and received a regional scholarship award over all other outreach and engagement programs on campus.
Nominated by the university president’s office, Ohio State’s Learning in Fitness and Education through Sports initiative was granted the 2020 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award Oct. 6. The scholarship award is $5,000, and Rebecca Wade-Mdivanian, director of operations for the LiFEsports initiative, said the money will be used for the initiative’s next summer camp.
Wade-Mdivanian said the initiative is meant to prepare youth in Columbus for life and leadership through sports, and, according to the LiFEsports website, the initiative assists more than 650 students each year.
The initiative is built upon the National Youth Sport Program at Ohio State, a community outreach program developed in 1968 designed to provide sport and education instruction in the summer to economically disadvantaged youth between the ages of 9 and 17, according to the website. The NYSP lost its funding in 2006, so Ohio State’s College of Social Work and the Department of Athletics partnered together to develop the LiFEsports initiative into a teaching and professional development institute, a research institution, and a national youth development program model, according to the website.
Many different Ohio State departments sponsor LiFEsports, including the School of Social Work, the Department of Athletics and the Department of Recreational Sports, Wade-Mdivanian said.
“We are funded heavily by athletics,” Wade-Mdivanian said. “So we know right going into next summer we need to fundraise around $260,000 to make that camp happen as it normally did.”
An annual summer camp has been held every summer since 2006 and hosts 600 children aged kindergarten through eighth grade for a four-week program, Wade-Mdivanian said. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 summer camp was virtual.
A LiFEsports summer camp member in action at the 2019 camp | Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Wade-Mdivanian
The initiative paired with the Lindy Infante Foundation, Columbus Recreation and Parks and Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority to give out equipment in five different Columbus neighborhoods, which the kids would use during online sports lessons, Wade-Mdivanian said.
“Every two weeks we would meet them back out at the community centers to pick up their next bag of equipment,” Wade-Mdivanian said. “Everything was free to the kiddos, as always, thanks to funding from our partners.”
About 200 children participated this summer in the virtual program, Wade-Mdivanian said.
Two children in particular who talked to Jerry Davis, executive director of outreach and engagement for LiFEsports, said they were going to miss their friends. Davis said he was confused about what they meant since everything was virtual.
“We were like, ‘Wow, all this work and everything that we did at the last minute to make this happen was powerful,’” Davis said. “These kids were calling the people that they never met in person their friends.”
One of the best parts of having a role in LiFEsports is seeing children who come every summer until they graduate, Wade-Mdivanian said.
“I feel so blessed to have watched our kiddos and support them as they turn from young, elementary-age kids into coming back to campus and giving back to kids that are just like them or growing up in very similar circumstances as them, just to see that circle of giving and commitment to the community,” Wade-Mdivanian said.
Davis said he always tells new counselors, a majority of whom are college students, how great it is to meet kids with all different personalities and experiences.
“I always tell them, ‘You will learn more from the kids than they will learn from you,’” Davis said.
