Chicago Westside Sports is Bridging the Accessibility Gap in Youth Athletics
Chicago Westside Sports has organized baseball and basketball leagues as well as archery training. (Credit: Chicago Westside Sports’ Facebook page)
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By Justin Cole, Reporter, The Real Chi |
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Lack of accessibility has long been a hindrance for prospective young athletes. Chicago Westside Sports aims to fill the void by providing opportunities to at-risk youth through sports and mentorship. Through their zero-cost club baseball, team USA archery and AAU basketball programs, Chicago Westside Sports is able to provide an athletic infrastructure for children ages 8-14 and their families in high-crime, low income areas.
Chicago Westside Sports combines the efforts of local police, church volunteers and allied community organizations to create an environment where boys and girls can learn skills such as leadership and teamwork through sports.
Sgt. Jermaine Harris, Pastor Steve Epting of Hope Community Church and Stephanie Marquardt said they started the Chicago Westside Sports, a non-profit organization, because of a lack of grant funding for the police and youth baseball programs started by Get IN Chicago.
“We were faced with all of these kids, volunteers and community members who had built up relationships over these years that were now left with ‘where do we go from here’,” said Harris. “So that really became the idea of where can we continue this?”
The founders created a three-legged stool model that has been instrumental in the success and organization of the program.
“We decided why not address access issues across the entire West Side? We developed six sites that were all replicas of this idea of using our police, our faith-based community and our non-profits, what we affectionately call our three-legged stool,” Harris stated. “We used that model to create these six sites all across the Westside.”
“One of our prayers was to have something big enough where everyone could take part so when [Chicago Westside Sports] presented itself it made so much sense because everyone agrees that our youth are so important and we have to protect them and surround them,” said Epting. “We have the police who can help with protection, security, coaching and mentoring and then we have the social services who can help with resources and then we have the faith-based who can wrap their arms around them spiritually and provide mentoring as well.”
“That’s why that three-legged stool model works because there are enough people involved that no one entity has to bear the weight of it,” Marquardt stated.
Outreach continued throughout the pandemic through relationships and connections that the program has built.
“We never stopped, we pressed in,” Marquadt said. “If a family needed something, we at each one of these sites knew them well enough and had enough partners where we could deliver a service.”
“Because of this three-legged stool model we were able to very quickly--actually within a week and a half-- put together remote learning sites where we could offer wifi and chromebooks for our most vulnerable kids,” Marquardt continued. “And it wouldn’t be City of Refuge or Westside Sports, it would be one of our eighty-five partners, we would just make that connection.”
Chicago Westside Sports has organized baseball and basketball leagues as well as archery training. (Credit: Hope Community Church via Hope Community Church Facebook’s Page)
“Because of his[Pastor Epting] networks, he was instrumental in getting covid testing so that we could make sure our kids were safe before they could practice,” Marquardt added.
“None of this happens without relationships--real relationships-- mentoring doesn’t even happen without relationships,” said Epting. “We probably started building this in our faith-based by just highlighting the fact that relationships are paramount to make anything work.”
Aside from sports, Chicago Westside Sports provides leadership and mentorship as well, drawing inspiration from Allan Houston’s FISLL(Faith, Integrity, Sacrifice, Leadership, Legacy) project.
“FISLL stands for faith, integrity, sacrifice, leadership, and legacy and we coach using those words and do mentoring around those words,” said Marquardt.
Chicago Westside Sports is not city funded and is volunteer oriented.
“I’m a volunteer and everyone at City of Refuge is a volunteer and all of these partners are volunteers,” said Marquardt. “The dollars that we get, most of them are private, there have been a few grants we applied for but we don’t get any city dollars.”
There are no immediate plans for expansion of the organization.
“The way we do it has required a lot of time and energy to actually develop,” Epting said. “It may look smooth but it’s definitely a challenge but a worthwhile challenge when we see the benefit.”
“One of the key things that makes this successful is that it’s asset based which means that it’s built around the people who exist in the neighborhood and community so we all have ties on the Westside which makes it successful because we have the relationships,” said Harris. “What it would take to expand into another place requires those people on the ground there who have the relationships to show an interest.”
“If that desire is there and they have those relationships in place--this model--we are always prepared to teach it, it does not cost money, we are not selling it, we are absolutely willing to work with anyone in communities who want to build something similar,” Harris said.