SquashBusters envisions a world where every young person is provided with the opportunities they need to fulfill their greatest potential.
Unfortunately, that is not the reality we live in. Across the United States – including in Boston, Lawrence, and Providence – kids from lower-income backgrounds have far fewer opportunities to play, learn and grow.
What is the opportunity gap?
According to a 2016 report by researchers at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, students from lower-income backgrounds are:
- Less likely to attend high-performing schools, and less likely to have access to tutoring and test prep services
- Less likely to have role models who have attended/graduated from college
- More likely to live in unsafe, resource-scarce neighborhoods
- Less likely to participate in organized sports
All of these factors stack the deck against the likelihood that young people growing up in poverty will be able to move up the economic ladder.
Our Solution
SquashBusters closes the opportunity gap for our students, while helping them improve their health and build their personal character.
SquashBusters is intensive and multi-faceted. Our students are immersed in the program throughout adolescence.
From ongoing tutoring to SAT prep, from physical fitness and squash instruction to national competition, from service in their own communities to international travel, SquashBusters students grow as students, athletes and citizens by gaining exposure to a larger world and developing, over time, the resilience and motivation they need to enroll in and graduate from college.