The Youth Sports Alliance runs after-school programs for students from first through ninth grades. The programs introduce kids to sports and healthy activities, and counts some local Olympians as alumni like speed skater Casey Dawson, luge athlete Ashley Farquharson and Nordic Combined competitor Jared Shumate.
YSA serves more than 20 local schools in the Park City, South Summit and Wasatch County school districts. Executive Director Emily Fisher says the organization is on target to engage 2,000 students a year. Of those, 27% receive some sort of scholarship to help cover the cost of participation.
One of the program’s biggest costs is transportation, which includes picking up the kids from school and taking them to their activities.
"We’re one of the only programs that provides transportation on those early release days," Fisher says. "When we provide transportation our scholarship rate is about one in five students, when we don’t provide transportation it falls to one in 19 because working parents just can’t afford to leave their desks at 12:30pm and drive their kids around to all these awesome programs that we have.”
To solve the transportation dilemma, YSA formed the Jim Gaddis Endowment, named for the long-time Park City philanthropist, who helped start the Youth Sports Alliance twenty years ago.
"He started the Park City Ski Team he negotiated the deal for the NAC to have the land where they are, he’s done a ton of work for the University of Utah ski team," Fisher says. "If I were to list all of the things he has done and started in the Park City area we would be here all day. He is an incredible man and an inspiration to me personally."
Fisher says the goal is to raise $2 million and use the interest off the money to cover annual transportation costs, which are around $80k a year. YSA has already raised $1 million. To find out how to donate, go to ysaparkcity.org. Renai Bodley Miller, KPCW News.
