Goodbye 2017... Hello 2018... AKA Shine a Light edition!

Happy New Year Everybody... Below is a recap of AKASPORT 2017 and on to wishing you all a bright, healthy and fortuitous 2018! 

2017 Community Impact Recap
Active Kids Association of Sport (AKASPORT)

Thank you for supporting Active Kids Association of Sport this year!  We had another wonderful year of summer camps and are well into our 2017-2018 After School Programs.

Our intention this past year was to build and expand on our sports and games curriculum, maintain equipment and train our staff to make these programs educational, enriching and fun! Our goal was to increase the amount of activity youth in our communities achieve each day and encourage active living into adulthood.  We use sport instruction and games to encourage physical activity while building personal skills including leadership, teamwork, discipline and sportsmanship.

Results: Growth & Impact
This past year we were able to open a third summer camp location and reach 59 additional youth bringing our total impact to 373 individual campers ! This is a 16% increase over summer 2016 and we have seen this type of growth or more each year since 2004.  During camp we coached over 18 sports and introduced several new sports and games including gymnastics, dance, handball and track & field events.

We are in between our after school programs for the 2017-2018 school year and have already implemented programs in seven schools and are committed to twelve schools this winter and spring.  We are in constant contact with our school program coordinators to bring requested programs right to them.

AKASPORT would not be successful without our amazing staff and program partners. We are proud that we had 70% of our summer staff return for a second, third or even fourth summer with AKA! Some of our senior staff even interned in other areas of AKA and acted as mentors for some of our after school participants. We have the capacity to bring on even more youth for summer 2018 and cannot wait to extend our reach and see the impact we will make.

While we specialize in keeping kids active, we also want to impact our community in other ways. This year we organized our second Earth Day park clean up, sixth annual Community Appreciation fundraiser event which continues to grow to raise funds and awareness for active programming and we organized our second winter coat drive to support those in need.

Future Planning
As we move into 2018 we are focused on growing our existing programs by filling our new Centennial location to capacity.  Our biggest initiative is expanding our after school and seasonal programs where we know we have the most room to grow and the most kids in need of active and safe programs. We feel confident we will increase participation in both these programs through by the end of the year.

We have two new programs starting in 2018 - AKA Outdoors and AKA Tykes! The AKA Outdoors initiative has been a dream for years and we are ready to put it into action. We will be starting with AKA Archery in January 2018 with the plan to build a catalog of outdoor activity options for our communities. We have been successful keeping kids active through more traditional sports, now it’s time to get the whole family active outdoors!

The AKA Tykes program is a new program for our 3-6 year old age group to introduce our youngest athletes to new sports and games. The purpose behind the Tykes program is to engage kids and parents! with active free play while they build coordination and teamwork. Our goal is to help them develop a love of being physically active as they enter their school age years.

Our committed staff and our continued investment in leadership  is what makes AKASPORT successful and unique compared to other youth programs in the Twin Cities.  To achieve our goals of  growing programs we are focused on educating and empowering our staff through updated staff training and resources.  As our programs continue to expand, we are committed to keeping them consistent, effective and impactful to each family. We plan to bring back a majority of our staff for summer 2018.  We are also working to hire a Director to lead AKA After School. This position will focus solely on engaging more schools and students during the after school hours to help us increase our reach across the Twin Cities.

To further our impact, we will continue our successful community events including park clean ups, winter coat and used sports equipment and apparel drives and our Community Appreciation Event as well as introduce new active family fun!

Thank you!
We hope you will continue to support our mission of keeping kids well rounded through sport! With your support we will continue to reach even more youth and help them achieve a lifelong love of healthy living.

Active Kids Association of Sport (AKASPORT) - 2017 review
Renee Beaman & Chris Schulz

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Let us keep close all of the positive memories that keep us smiling and seeking more.  Keep close those we have lost and let us to move forward with compassion and care for everyone out there... Keep active, keep inspired and help spread Peace to all!      ...All the Best, CS