Memphis Athletic Ministries - GlobalGiving



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Community Center Objective, Goals and Plans

MAM’s overall objectives, goals and plans can be found below in the MAM Overview. We are striving to implement our regular programming in the following four community centers, recently acquired in November 2009:

• Uptown Community Center at 190 Mill Avenue, 38105

• Magnolia Community Center at 2130 Wabash Street, 38114

• Hamilton Community Center at 1363 East Person Avenue, 38106

• Bethel LaBelle at 2698 Larose Avenue, 38114

We will offer complete MAM programs – recreation, organized sports, academics, financial literacy, Bible studies – to achieve our mission of positively changing lives and producing a generation of successful City of Memphis citizens. By establishing computer labs in each of the four community centers and requiring participation in the curriculum provided in the labs to participate in sports, MAM will expose the neighborhood youth to academics and financial education in a manner currently unavailable to them. In addition, MAM desires to provide adults of all ages with computer software for GED test preparation to engage them in pursuing their high school diplomas and open up the doors to better jobs, leading to better life choices. These community centers will no longer be a place where unemployed youth can hang out without any requirement to improve their personal status.

Community Need

The Memphis urban community is marked by a high level of undereducated citizens as a result of poor academic performance - low graduation rates (20% below the national average), high dropout rates (50% greater than the Tennessee average) and low math and reading proficiency (73% of Tennessee students are not proficient on National Assessment of Educational Progress test). The need for additional academic enrichment programs outside of school is clearly demonstrated in these statistics.

The need for financial literacy and personal financial responsibility is also seen by the following information: Tennessee leads the nation in bankruptcies per household in 2007; Memphis leads Tennessee in bankruptcies in 2007; 80% of Memphis City School system families do not have a bank account; 53,000 children live in poverty in Memphis; 81% of the children living in poverty have single parent households; 55% of live births in Memphis were to single mothers in 2007 and 35% of MAM neighborhood families live below the national poverty level.

In addition, statistics show a high incidence of risky behaviors (nearly 50% of middle school students have tried alcohol, over 70% of middle school students have been in a fight, over 60% percent of high school students have had sexual intercourse and nearly 50% high school students have smoked marijuana).

Unquestionably, the youth that MAM serves face multiple challenges to their future success as young adults.

How MAM Serves

Our goal is to change the lives of urban at-risk youth, ages 6 to 18, to prepare them for successful adulthood. MAM uses organized sports as the hook to attract youth to our after-school/summer programs in a safe, secure environment. MAM currently serves over 750 youth daily at our seven neighborhood youth centers.

Through year-round small mentoring groups (each of our approximately 50 sports teams becomes a mentoring group of 10 boys or girls), MAM staff and volunteers build one-on-one relationships to change negative behavior in each youth’s life. Changed behavior manifests as increased personal responsibility and accountability (alternative to the “fight or flight” mentality), hanging around the “right crowd” (reduced crime), improved academic performance (more high school graduates) and improved health. In addition, MAM youth are exposed to different ethnic groups in our community, bridging socio-economic, geographical, and cultural differences.

Each mentoring group (sports team), comprised of elementary, middle school or high school youth, is required to participate in academic enrichment and financial literacy lessons weekly, along with a weekly recreation activities. By linking sports participation with improved reading and math skills and financial know-how, MAM develops the total young person - both physically and mentally. In addition, MAM youth become empowered with skills to help them break the cycle of poverty.

MAM academics includes learning financial literacy

Helping middle and high school youth improve academic performance with a high school diploma and beyond as the goal, while learning essential lifelong money management skills, such as budgeting and delayed gratification, stewardship and service is the purpose of the MAM Academic All Stars program augmented with participation in the new Bluff City Bucks$ incentive program.

MAM’s Academic All Stars (AAS) program is designed to boost the MAM team sport activities by providing a heightened academic experience, coupled with incentives, to the youth enrolled in the program. Each participant spends time each week working on improving his/her academics and financial literacy knowledge. The Academic All Stars component features reading and math. Our staff monitors the small groups to ensure that the participants are making satisfactory progress in school and that they are maintaining a satisfactory school attendance and conduct record.

Trained staff uses computers to primarily deliver the academic enrichment portion of the curriculum. By using technology, MAM can more easily and economically address the academic needs of the youth. Stanford Math, Accelerated Reader and Ticket To Read are all part of this approach.

The recently added component of academic preparedness, BC Bucks$, is implemented through Economis, curriculum and software developed by Faith Based Consulting of Charlottesville, Virginia. Economis teaches through a hands-on, web-based mini-economy and interactive financial literacy curriculum. An incentive-based system rewards youth for their participation in constructive activities (e.g., tutoring, mentoring, and recreation) and gives them resources to manage. Students earn credits in the Economis mini-economy for their participation and accomplishments in their school and after-school programs. Then they can save, invest, give, and spend those resources in an online store managed by MAM. Economis mimics the real world economy (students receive direct deposit paychecks, have taxes deducted, earn interest via their saving accounts and virtual CDs, and build virtual stock portfolios using real time information from Wall Street).

To complement the hands-on, experiential learning of Economis, MAM staff also teaches a written financial literacy curriculum. This curriculum, divided by age groups, is synched to state academic content standards. The curriculum is highly interactive, involving online games, role playing, and competitions. Topics covered include opportunity costs, budgeting, savings and interest, investing, credit management, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.

In order to determine effectiveness, the BC Buck$ program uses a variety of evaluation techniques such as: pre and post tests; surveys; youth participation; program retention; personal attainments and store utilization & usage. Through 25 non-profits in East Palo Alto, Indianapolis, Miami, and Richmond, the existing Economis program serves nearly 400 inner-city, low-income youth in urban neighborhoods. Based upon pre/post test results from the program’s implementers, the average (across all grades and all participants) increase in the financial literacy scores was 26 percentage points.

Memphis Athletic Ministries Overview

MAM Programs provide high quality, year-round mentoring programs open to all at-risk youth, ages 6 to 18, in disadvantaged urban Memphis neighborhoods. Since 2001, MAM has offered programs which address the physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual development needs of the served youth.

MAM Mission is to use organized sports to share and model Christ to urban, at-risk youth and to foster unity among diverse segments of the community.

MAM’s Objective is to improve our community by causing positive changes in three distinct areas of our participant’s lives:

• Improved spiritual growth- Love God

• Improved relationships with others- Love Others

• Improved personal behavior- Love Self

MAM’s Solution means providing access to year round, quality programs with well trained staff in partnership with families, schools and other community organizations and implementing the following four step strategy:

• Attract participation by using organized sports to draw at-risk neighborhood youth to MAM centers

• Create nurturing environment through small mentoring groups headed up by MAM staff and volunteers at each neighborhood center to foster healthy relationships

• Provide comprehensive programs that address the physical, mental, social and spiritual needs of youth

• Promote community involvement by organizing community-wide sports activities to bridge geographic, cultural & socio-economic differences and to expose the neighborhood youth to the broader community

MAM Programs-

• Community sports (basketball, soccer, golf) and neighborhood sports (flag football)

• Academic All Stars- weekly academic sessions with computer labs & trained staff

• Financial literacy- incentive program designed to foster program and non-program accomplishments and teach personal financial responsibility

MAM Program Partners- MAM partnered with 142 organizations in 2008 to offer community-wide sports activities to over 8,000 participants. MAM’s community-wide programs foster interaction between all economic and racial groups as 64% of participants came from urban areas while 36% came from non-urban areas. MAM allows everyone to participate regardless of background, religious affiliation or athletic ability.

Program Evaluation- 95% of parents since 2005 reported that participation in MAM programs made a positive difference in their child. These results clearly demonstrate that MAM is achieving its goal of improving participant’s relationship to God, others and self.

MAM Board of Directors- James Armfield (MAM) President and Chief Operating Officer; Staley Cates (Longleaf Partners), Chairman; Harold Collins (Attorney General Office/Memphis City Council); Dallas Geer (Poplar Foundation); Jarvis Greer (WMC Channel 5); Carolyn Hardy (Hardy Bottling); Rusty Hensley (Petree, Evans, Bogatin), Secretary; Jerry Leary (FedEx); Larry Lloyd (Memphis Leadership Foundation); Jay Martin (NSA); Elliott Perry (Poplar Foundation); Gib Vestal (MAM), Chief Executive Officer; Fenton Wright (Shalom Project), Treasurer

Memphis Athletic Ministries Sites

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Memphis Athletic Ministries

An affiliated ministry of the Memphis Leadership Foundation

Community Center Computer Lab Budget

|Income |$ Amount |Comments |

|TOTAL |$ 59,200 |To be raised from various sources |

| | | |

|Expense |$ Amount |Comments |

|Computers/monitors (one time) |$ 40,000 |4 sites; 20 computers per site; $500 per computer/monitor |

|Software (one time) |$ 8,000 |80 computers; $100 per computer |

|Cabling/Other Equipment (one time) |$ 4,000 |$1,000 per 4 sites |

|Internet Service (ongoing) |$ 7,200 |$150 per month; 12 months; 4 sites |

|TOTAL |$ 59,200 | |

| | | |

* One time expense- $52,000 ($14,800 per site); Ongoing expense ($7,200 per year; $1,800 per site)

2107 Ball Road, Memphis, TN 38114

(901) 744-MAM1; Fax (901) 744-1600

Toll-free 877-457-9412

MAM at a Glance

❖ 30+ full time staff members

❖ 7 neighborhood youth centers offerings year-round programs Monday to Saturday

❖ Average daily attendance of over 600 youths

❖ Over 400 youths currently involved in small mentoring groups (team sports)

❖ Key program partners: Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Olivet Fellowship Baptist Church, Brinkley Heights Urban Academy, Repairing The Breach Ministries, New Hope Christian Academy

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MAM/New Hope

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MAM/Brinkley Heights

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MAM/Sacred Heart

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MAM/Whitehaven

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MAM/Olivet Fellowship

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MAM/Salvation Army

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Grizzlies Center

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MAM Park Golf Course

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