Venture Field: Youth Enrichment

Year of Venture Launch: 2007

Name: Nicholas

Role in the Venture: President

Venture Description: We are going to hold sport swaps twice per year where families can buy gently used sports equipment for much less than retail prices. The money that the swap makes will go toward "sportships" to help pay the sign up fees for our town and school sports for families in need of a little help. This way, more kids in our community can play organized sports and be a part of a TEAM. The families will save on the cost of sports equipment and be able to sign their kids up for free in many cases. The equiplment for the sports swap is either donated or consigned.

Venture Origin: We love sports ourselves and the fees to sign up in our town have gone up quite a bit over the years. We've seen many kids who can't sign up or can't afford cleats or baseball gloves.

Innovation: There really isn't any help in our community for sports fees and equipment. We live in a fairly poor town and they are always cutting the school budgets. Sports and arts are always first to be cut. We'll raise money from the swap which is like a store and give the money to the sports organizations in town to give out to kids who need it.

Impact

Impact: Our first sports swap is scheduled for April 14, 2007.

Engagement with the community: So far we have 3 members of our venture. People in our community are very excited about the first swap in April 07.

Impact and engagement progress since launch: We have had 2 meetings and we're making progress every day.

Impact and engagement strategy: We really think that the sports swap will continue for many, many years. We will find other kids that want to keep it going to help as many kids as possible play organized sports.

Awards: None

Budget

Amount of Youth Venture seed grant: $859.27

Money raised: N/A

Creative ways of raising resources: We are setting up drop off sites for equipment at schools, stores and our homes. We are putting up flyers, putting info in school and community group newsletters about the swap ad drop off sites.

Strategy

Expansion plan for next 6 months: Our first sports swap is April 2007 and our second will be early Septmeber 2007.

Plans for sustaining the project: We will be recruiting younger friends who are also interested in sports and their community and passing the sports swap on to them when we go off to college in 4 and a half years. That should give us plenty of time to find and train the right people.

Vision for three years from now: Three years from now we see the sports swap increasing in size and interest every year. We will have helped many kids play on sport teams. We will have raised at least $2,000 for sportships by then and have given out many pairs of gently used cleats, shin guards, soccer balls, baseball gloves, ect.

Project impact: We haven't had a sports swap yet. Our first swap is April 14, 2007.

Youth Venture movement - what it means and how you can contribute: The Youth Venture movemnet is very exciting. I may not be able to start something so great at a young age like this otherwise. I wish more kids knew about Youth Venture in the world and our community. There are so many ideas of new venture that would help our world. I keep using the name Youth Venture when I talk about our sports swap. I tell kids at my school that they can come up with a plan to help our community too. We are going to put the Youth Venture website and some information in our school's newsletters. Youth Venture will always be a apart of our lives.

Author:
Nicholas
United States