SquashDrive -helping Oakland Youth through Squash

As most of you know, I love playing squash and it there is a great community of SF Bay Area squash players that form a fairly tight knit community. A few years ago, a few player formed SquashDrive, an incredible youth program that opens doors for and provides incomparable opportunities to the young people the squasj commiumit serves. This year, SquashDrive needs our help more than ever. For all of us, life has dramatically changed over the last two years, but perhaps no one’s lives have been as upended as the young people we know, who have been abruptly uprooted from their studies and their friends and who have had to take an abrupt left turn to navigate school and activities in the varying formats in which they are currently offered.

The 2023 Slam Challenge is designed to enhance the spirit of competition, sense of community, and advocacy and fundraising of the annual in-person tournament, and I ask that you please join me by making a gift and helping me reach my goal of $3,678, 100% of which goes to the SquashDrive program.

Thanks,

Walter

What has SquashDrive accopmlished.

100% of first two classes of students (12) graduated from high school

100% of first two classes of students (11) enrolled in college & (1) in the Marine Corps

Colleges include: UC Berkeley, Hobart & William Smith, Hampton University, Colorado College, Contra Costa College, Diablo Valley College, Cal State Sacramento, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Laney College, Rice University, & United States Marine Corps

First two cohorts of students earned $366,000 in scholarships for college

12 students earned full scholarships to 5-week academic summer programs at Phillips Exeter Academy, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Stanford, Choate, and Taft School

Students each year participate in 5-STEM focused programs

1 student earned the QuestBridge full scholarship to Rice University

1 alumna, class of 2023 founded a non-profit organization, ‘Inclusivity’

1 student awarded the Lindsey Vonn Athletic Scholarship

1 graduate currently plays collegiate squash at Hobart & William Smith