News
The fourth annual tournament, on August 21 at Seward Park, featured 250 players from teams in 10 Chicago neighborhoods.
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LCDC brings B-Ball program out of the gym and into a more public, overt role in slam-dunking crime and gang activity.
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A year ago, hundreds of Chicago youth from neighborhoods all over the city converged on Crane High School for the Spring Into Sports finals. This year, the Near West Side Community Development Corporation kept the SIS spirit alive by keeping Crane open once again so kids could use their spring break time to hone athletic skills, make new friends, and enjoy competing in an organized, safe environment.
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Alternatives, Inc. will host its third annual 8K race on Sunday, May 23, 2010 at Montrose Harbor. Online registration is available at: http://www.active.com/running/chicago-il/the-alternate-route-8k-run-for-youth-2010
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On a picture-perfect, sunny afternoon, Chicago Police Officer Veronica Wingard looks out at Hamilton Park, located in the middle of her patrol area in Englewood. A group of 10 teenage boys is stretching for a game of touch football while another group, comprised mostly of girls, is picking out tennis rackets.
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At 6:30 on a Friday evening in late August at a Southside Salvation Army, coach Daryl Bell is sitting in the bleachers of the large gymnasium as a hotly-contested game between teenage boys in its final minutes is playing out on the floor. Bell calls timeout and substitutes three new players onto the court.
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Ciclo Urbano's "West Town Bikes" program allows people to access the city with just two wheels;no need for four. Here, you can learn not only the advantages of cycleing through the city, but how to keep your bike in tip-top shape through one of their classes.
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When Reverend Leotis Johnson sat down to plan out Pilgrim Baptist Church’s annual Southside youth summer camp, he decided this year’s program needed a new theme. Thinking back to some of his volunteer efforts, he drew inspiration from Spring Into Sports, the youth-athletics-based initiative that attracted 1,500 kids from around Chicago in March of this year.
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The 2016 Olympics represented an opportunity for Chicago to place itself squarely on the world stage, and perhaps tilt the economic dynamics of the city towards many of the neighborhoods in which LISC and our partners live and work.
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Most people that run marathons train for several years during adulthood before tackling their first 26.2-mile race.
The members of MGR Foundation's Team M3 are not most people.
Nor are they adults, for that matter.
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The spirit of conquest is alive and well in East Garfield Park, where Breakthrough Urban Ministries partnered with Ceasefire Chicago and other community organizations to reclaim the St. Louis Playlot, located at the corner of North St. Louis and West Carroll Avenues.
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Jesus Martinez, a recent high school graduate and resident of Little Village, started a business with his twin brother, Oscar, called Twin Films. They were inspired to create their business after Jesus polished his craft in a media class sponsored by LISC.
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The Hoops in the Hood Citywide Finals are the culmination of a summer full of basketball and community building. Community organizations and residents partnered to bring unity to their communities through basketball. The Citywide Finals took that one step further, bringing together eleven Chicago communities to share in a day of hoops and harmony.
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Walk into the Shedd Park Fieldhouse any weekday afternoon and you’re sure to see something that will stop you cold: young people flying through the air all over the gymnasium. They are doing back flips and aerials and handsprings and other awe-inspiring feats of athleticism. Is it a Ninja training facility? A zero-gravity club? No, it’s Tumbling for Success, a gymnastics-based sports program for youths between ages 3 and 18. And these kids really know how to make a jaw drop.
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On Friday July 31st, a Humboldt Park neighborhood organization transformed the 1900 block of North St. Louis Avenue from a conventional Chicago street into a temporary performance space where basketball players, tumblers, poets, neighborhood residents, and even a clown celebrated summer in the city.
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The Little Village Summer Softball League brings together neighborhood residents, with an emphasis on reaching out to at-risk youth.
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Project Play claims the open space at 31st St. and Lawndale Avenue in Little Village for families to get outside and play together. Combining traditional sports, like basketball and soccer, with activities like tag and 4-square, Beyond the Ball is using Tuesday nights to inspire parents and their children to adopt healthy lifestyles.
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The Chicago Training Center connects students to the non-traditional sport of rowing. On July 11th, they tested their rowing skills, but through the CTC they have also acquired life skills.
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Open Streets took place on August 1st, allowing bikers, walkers, and joggers to take over the boulevards on the west side of Chicago. Neighborhood organizations worked together to entertain and welcome visitors to their community.
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Summer and vacation go hand in hand. But for too many kids, “vacation” just means a break from school, because they rarely actually go anywhere. Instead, they spend most of their summer inside the house, or hanging around the neighborhood. But for the last ten years, Andrew Dortch of Dortch Enterprises has offered inner-city youth a unique and productive alternative: exploring Chicago on their bicycles.
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Bicyclists, inline skaters, runners and strollers will hit the boulevards in five West Side NCP neighborhoods from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday when last October’s twin Sunday Parkways events are reprised all at once under a new name: Open Streets.
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Friday nights look a little different this summer in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Basketball hoops are set up in the streets, surrounded by kids dribbling and shooting. Grills are smoking in front yards, getting loaded up with hot dogs. Popcorn and snow cones are being handed out. And people who previously did not meet are now coming together to enjoy the community feeling created by "Hoops in the Hood."
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When most people think about inner city youth sports programs, they generally think of basketball or football, or perhaps even boxing. But Montana Butsch of the Chicago Training Center has something different in mind. He wants to fatten that list a bit, with football and basketball sliding over to make room for rowing.
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Representatives from more than a dozen organizations affiliated with Neighborhood Sports Chicago heard and reacted to a presentation about coaching practices that can create a positive environment for youth.
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We've assembled all the photo slideshows and videos in this category so you can find them easily. There's basketball, volleyball, rowing, double dutch, archery, swimming and plenty more from all four of the Spring Into Sports high school venues.
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An ugly sleet-snowstorm scared off more than half the runners registered for the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle, held Sunday, March 29. Yet 21 middle-schoolers from Chicago Running Mates joined the 14,000 who braved the wet, wind and near-freezing cold. For most of the Running Mates, it was their first-ever 8K.
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The turnout of about 1,500 middle- and high-school students for a sports program that kept them busy—and out of trouble—during spring break has organizers looking ahead to next year.
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Administrators at Crane Technical Prep High School said the Spring Into Sports week at their school went about as well as they could have hoped.
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Ordinarily empty during Spring Break, Crane Technical Prep High School on Saturday, April 11, was instead the scene of the final matches of the Spring Into Sports competition that had engaged students from throughout the city the entire week.
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It almost seems routine after seven days of intense competition and fun that engaged 1,500 neighborhood youth during Spring Into Sports. But it couldn't have happened without strong local leaders, a lot of organizing and a love of kids as well as sports.
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Boom-boom-boom-boom. Boom-boom-boom. So echoed the gymnasium at Crane Tech Prep High School on April 10 as youth tried to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” with former Olympians as their sparring partners.
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The Fresh 10 volleyball team was organized by freshman Yessenia Malacara just a month ago, but when it took the court Wednesday at Little Village Lawndale High School, it put on quite a show.
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Daryl Bell is a man with a mission – to engage young people in constructive activity during their idle Spring Break. And in a neighborhood that’s seen its share of hard times, he also wants to keep them alive.
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Think middle-school basketball’s for kids? Should have checked out the NTA vs. Fish game on Monday afternoon at Crane Tech Prep High School, where Spring Into Sports competition is in high gear. Sure, kids were playing. But they were playing bigger than their size.
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Here's where to find out how teams are doing in the Spring Into Sports 2009 tournaments.
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Hundreds of Chicago middle- and high-school students converged on the four Spring Into Sports venues over the weekend to register for formal competitions, observe demonstration sports, and warm up with pick-up soccer and basketball games. And a gymnastics demonstration at Orr High School caught the attention of the b-ballers.
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Find the days and times for programming at each of the four Spring Into Sports venues, April 4 to 11.
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If you're not registered yet for Spring Into Sports, or want to get some friends and teammates involved, find the information you need here and download the forms. You can fax or email them, bring them to your local partner organization, or show up at the venue starting at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 4.
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While other schools close down for Chicago's spring break, four high schools will open their doors to 250 youth each day for Spring into Sports, an eight-day run of tournaments, demonstrations, skills drills, open swimming and other athletic activities, all designed to keep youth engaged. The schools are Crane, Englewood, Orr and Little Village Lawndale.
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The Chicago Park District will partner with Chicago Public Schools and Spring into Sports to add open swim sessions at all four venues, from Saturday, April 4 through Friday, April 10.
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More than 15 representatives from community organizations and church groups met in Little Village last week to learn about Spring Into Sports (SIS), a week-long series of competitions, demonstrations and recreational activities that will take place at Little Village Lawndale High School. Little Village is one of four neighborhoods gearing up programs and partners to host the sports series.
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Sports programming by the Neighborhood Sports Alliance and LISC/Chicago will extend beyond Spring Breat as program partners launch Chicago Co-MOTION, a summer-long calendar that will include more neighborhoods, more sports and citywide activities that support healthy lifestyles.
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Chicago Run has been finding ways to combat Pediatric Obesity among Chicago Public School students since 2007. This year, they serve over 6,000 students in 30 schools. Their "Fall Fun Run" will take place on Saturday, November 7th at Washington Park on Chicago's South Side.
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Over six-thousand CPS students and their families gathered to run or walk a mile at Washington Park in Chicago on November 7th. A short distance for a day, but it represents a huge, positive change in the lives of many of those involved.
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