Lakiesha Shears’ 12-year-old son is dreaming big, and she’s here for it.
“Bless his heart, he really believes he is going to play for the NFL and the NBA,” the single mom of three boys said, laughing. “Now listen, I really hope so. I’m not going to say that’s not possible, but I’m going to say that’s few and far between, so I am going to stress that he has other ideas.”
It’s a financial struggle, though, raising three boys on her own and supporting all of their athletic dreams. So when Shears got a surprise email from Denver Public Schools notifying her that because her middle-schooler qualifies for free and reduced lunch, he also is eligible to receive $1,000 to pay for after-school sports, dance, music or art programs, she was thrilled. It was such good news that it actually seemed like a scam.
The offer — $1,000 on a restricted debit card that works at 127 organizations with after-school and summer programs — is called My Spark Denver, an experiment for Denver middle school students that organizers hope could one day expand to other age groups and other parts of the state.
The program is capped at 4,000 kids, and already, more than 1,000 have been approved. It’s first-come, first-served, and the only requirements are that the kids are in a Denver Public Schools middle school and that their family qualifies for free and reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty.
The debit cards will not work at King Soopers or Target, or anywhere besides the approved list of organizations — which include school-affiliated sports and activities, plus Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, School of Breaking, the YMCA, Denver DJ School and more than 100 others.
“There is a deep belief that after-school and summer learning programs aren’t nice to have, they are must-haves,” said Angie McPhaul, director of youth success at Gary Community Ventures, which contributed $1 million for the debit cards, adding to a $3.5 million investment from the City and County of Denver.
“The opportunity to connect with peers who have your shared interests, connect with trusted adults, to take risks in safe spaces, to pursue your passion, those are essential to growing up,” she said. “We really want low-income families to access these really transformational experiences with the same ability that middle- and high-income families do.”
For Shears, whose boys are 5, 12 and 19, the money means that seventh-grader Elijah could pay the $300 registration to join the competitive basketball team. The young quarterback also can sign up for flag football at school and through a club, and he will have enough money on the debit card to join a basketball camp over winter break.
Shears, a respiratory therapist who lives in the west Denver neighborhood of Ruby Hill, does not underestimate the connection between sports and keeping her kids out of trouble. Her oldest, Isaiah, was lucky to get B’s and C’s before he signed up for middle school basketball. Now he’s a sophomore at Colorado State University, the first male in five generations to finish high school instead of getting involved in drugs or going to prison.
“The coach wouldn’t allow them to play if they didn’t have a certain grade point average,” Shears recalled. “He started to have a friendly competition with one of his friends about grades and he started to make straight A’s. That’s when he realized he could do it and he just kept doing it. And of course we wanted a scholarship for basketball. He didn’t get that but he did get an academic scholarship to CSU and he is a second-year engineering student.”
She of course wants the same for Elijiah, assuming he doesn’t make it to the NFL and the NBA. Shears can already see how Elijah’s coaches and teammates influence his grades and attitude.
“They teach him leadership. They teach him teamwork. He celebrates other people’s wins as well. And it’s also teaching him how to lose,” she said. “These kids don’t know how to lose. I really believe that’s a part of all of our violence. Nobody wants to get beat up, nobody wants to say they lost this battle.”
“It keeps him off the streets. We have a lot of things that go on in this area that are not the best, and I can safely say that my son is not interested because he is at basketball practice or a game or at football.”
The Spark program is the result of brainstorming between Gary Community Ventures, which supports education and family economic mobility, and several other organizations, including Mile High United Way, Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver, Movimiento Poder, the school district and the city’s Office of Children’s Affairs.
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It will run through September 2024, but the 4,000 spots are expected to go quickly. A survey found that about 60% of low-income families said their kids go without extracurricular activities because of the cost. That’s the case even when the registration fee is just $50 or $100.
“If you are a family that is on free and reduced lunch and struggle to make ends meet by the end of the month, those $50 or $100 can really make a difference,” McPhaul said.
She’s hopeful the public-private partnership will catch on in other cities across Colorado, and that increased funding would allow organizations to expand it to include elementary and high school students.
“We’re not saying long term that we think only middle-schoolers should benefit from it but it seemed like a place to start,” she said.