Allie Lindsley
SAY San Diego is thrilled to announce that The Rice Family Foundation recently awarded a grant to SAY San Diego for two exciting projects – Girls Circle and a Middle School Youth Sports League!
To address the needs of vulnerable students, SAY will launch Girls Circle, an evidence-based program that employs a strengths-based approach rooted in relational-cultural and resiliency theory. The Girls Circle curriculum is comprised of thirteen guides including topics such as friendships, relationships, setting boundaries, coping skills, effects of drug use, reaching goals and self-care. Girls Circle will take place at SAY’s Serra Real Connections (SRC), a thriving family resource center on the Serra High School campus in San Diego that collaborates with community stakeholders to serve over 1,000 youth and their families annually through mentoring, academic support, youth leadership and development programs, workshops, and parent education and engagement. Girls Circle groups will be facilitated by highly qualified female Healthy Start program staff and co-facilitated by social work interns from partnering universities.
In order to provide youth enrolled in our Prime Time after school care with the chance to experience teamwork and fun during the critical “tween” years, SAY San Diego will launch a Middle School Youth Sports League for 150+ students so they can play their peers in team sports such as flag football, soccer, basketball, and more. The majority of youth enrolled are with us from 2:00 – 6:00pm each school day, or 20+ hours per week, while their parents work. We want their significant time with us to be fun and impactful. Unfortunately, intramural sports leagues are simply not an option for most children of low-income, working class, and single-parent families due to the financial- and time-demands that come with securing uniforms, taking off work to drive the youth to games, providing snacks for the team, and so on. Now our youth don’t have to miss out on the transformative experience of joining a formal team!
