This year’s Jack Thompson Sports Camps marked our 5th year of partnership with Run to WIn and Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission in offering these sports camps to our neighborhood children. The kids love those 3 days of learning and running and laughing and running and scoring and running! I talked to a group of children today who were still excited because at the Jack Thompson camps they could learn soccer from Mr. Koa in the mornings and in the afternoons, they could learn how to run patterns from a few of the Evergreen High School football players! Meanwhile, the girls from the Evergreen High School Volleyball team headed up the volleyball camp and a few of the athletes from Evergreen’s tennis team taught tennis! For kids like Andrew and Isaiah and Delaney, it was all Hoop Time!

Pat Thompson

***Check out the pictures on the photos page. Pictures by Alex Collier and Mindy Lynn Litton

They did it.  And they were impressive. 207 miles.  The smiles were ear to ear, the feeling of accomplishment was palpable.  Watching the group ride in together took my breath away, I truly felt God’s favor just being able to witness that kind of joy!  Definitely a summer highlight!  Thank you Ed, Danielle, Dan and all of the rest of the folks at Cascade Bicycle Club!  Also, thanks to Bethany Tate.  Teacher, coach, mentor, trusted adult in the lives of hundreds of White Center teens…she’s the best.

Pat Thompson

Check out the photos from the finish.  You’ll see.

This weekend is the Cascade Bicycle Club’s Seattle to Portland Ride and four of our teenagers will be making the trip with a larger group from the Cascade bike club! I asked one of my young friends how he was feeling about the ride and he said that he was excited but also a bit nervous. I think it’s amazing that Fabian and his friends have decided to push the limits a little and do something out of their comfort zone. What a great way to spend the weekend! Doing something you never dreamed you’d ever do! What I can’t wait for is the fall when he returns to school and the satisfaction he will feel when people ask, “What did you do this summer?”…

The YES Foundation and Cascade have a common vision about all kids having access and opportunity to ride bikes. Seems simple doesn’t it? However, we have been asking the question, “How do we create a bicycle riding culture in White Center?” for years. It seems serendipitous that Cascade Bicycle Club would launch the Major Taylor Project in White Center. The stated mission for this project is: Creating a multicultural bicycling community where teenagers have equal opportunity to spend time outdoors and on a bicycle. The YES Foundation is thrilled to be its host here in the neighborhood! About 12 - 13 kids participated in the weekly rides in late spring. The club continues to meet during the summer. You can’t imagine how exciting it is for us to watch the kids ride out of the church parking lot every Monday afternoon. Excited for the new ways that they are encountering their own neighborhood. Excited for the sense of independence they seem to be gaining every week. Excited for the ways they are paying attention to their own health issues. Excited for the feeling they have about becoming a different kind of steward of their environment. Really excited about the relationships they are forming with Dan, Danielle and Ed, the people who are leading their weekly rides. Pretty much just flat excited.

Pat Thompson

3 days & 5 sports.
June 30th, July 1st and July 2nd.
9am - Noon and 1-4pm
Evergreen High School gyms, fields and courts.
830 SW 116th St., Seattle, WA 98146

For all athletes, all would-be athletes and all kids ages 6 - 14 who are looking to have a little summer fun. Football, basketball, soccer, tennis and volleyball. Cost is $20, scholarships available.

For more information, call Pat Thompson at 206.349.8106

We’ll be looking for you!

Tomorrow is Christmas in June.  

Christmas in June has become kind of my own personal start date for summer!  It truly is one of my most favorite things that we do at the YES Foundation.  On the last day of school, every student in two neighborhood elementary schools, Mount View Elementary and White Center Heights Elementary, goes home with a ball or some piece of sporting equipment and a wish and a prayer from their community that they would have a fun, active and safe summer!  An encouragement that they can get a soccer game going with their friends or cousins, throw the football around with the other kids in their apartment complex, shoot some hoop at the park…maybe even try their luck at croquet or flying a kite!

This time we will also raffle off 8 bikes!  If you want to do something for yourself, next school year, go buy 4 bikes, take them down to the local elementary school and have them raffled off at an assembly!  Ask the principal if you can stay and watch!  The impact that it will have on you is rivaled only by the impact it could have on one (or four) of the children in your neighborhood.  We don’t think about it a lot, but here, in White Center, and in places like White Center, a $70 bike can literally change a kid’s life!

We’re thankful for all of our partners who help us make it happen:  World Vision and Baden Sports!  Thanks Reed! Thanks Bo!

***See pictures on the photos page. Pictures by Mark Wagner
 

Have a great summer, Everyone!  Pat Thompson

Thank you for stopping by our new, beautiful website. I know I am partial but I love the colors and the homepage actually brightens my day! Visit as often as you like, you are welcome anytime.